Breakdown of Tämä pelimekaniikka on yhtä vaikea kuin vanha.
tämä
this
olla
to be
vanha
old
vaikea
difficult / hard
Questions & Answers about Tämä pelimekaniikka on yhtä vaikea kuin vanha.
How does the yhtä ... kuin structure work to mean "as ... as"?
In Finnish, to say two things are equal in some quality, you use yhtä (literally "equally", derived from yksi) followed by the adjective, and then kuin (as/than). So yhtä vaikea kuin literally means "equally difficult as".
The English translation says "the old one", but the Finnish just says vanha. Why isn't there a word for "one"?
English requires a dummy pronoun like "one" so the adjective isn't left hanging, but Finnish doesn't need this. Adjectives in Finnish can stand completely on their own as nouns. If you added a word like yksi here, it would sound like you were counting a specific single item.
Why are both pelimekaniikka and vanha in the nominative case here?
When you compare two things using yhtä ... kuin, the second item (after kuin) usually takes the same case as the first item. Since the subject Tämä pelimekaniikka is in the basic nominative case, vanha is also in the nominative.
Since mekaniikka is a loanword with front vowels (e, i) and a back vowel (a), how does vowel harmony work if we add an ending?