Breakdown of Sairas eläkeläinen on yhä hauraampi.
olla
to be
sairas
sick
eläkeläinen
the pensioner
yhä
still, yet (continuing)
hauras
frail
Questions & Answers about Sairas eläkeläinen on yhä hauraampi.
How does yhä work with hauraampi to mean 'more and more frail'?
In Finnish, continuous change is expressed by pairing the adverb yhä with the comparative form of an adjective. While yhä usually means 'still', combining it with the comparative hauraampi translates directly to 'still frailer', which is the standard way Finnish expresses 'increasingly frail' or 'more and more frail'.
Could I say enemmän ja enemmän hauras instead of using yhä?
You might occasionally hear that in casual speech due to English influence, but yhä hauraampi is the grammatically correct, natural, and traditional Finnish way to express this continuous change. Using yhä combined with a comparative adjective is much more elegant.
What is the base form of hauraampi, and how do we get this comparative form?
The base adjective is hauras, meaning frail or fragile. For words ending in -as, you find the inflectional stem by dropping the -s and doubling the final vowel, which gives us the stem hauraa-. You then attach the comparative suffix -mpi to make hauraampi.
How is the word eläkeläinen built?
It is derived from the noun eläke, which means pension. By attaching the suffix -läinen or -lainen, which indicates a person belonging to or associated with a concept or place, you get a word that describes a person on a pension, or a pensioner.
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