Breakdown of Uusi kahvimylly on entistä nopeampi.
olla
to be
uusi
new
nopea
fast (adjective)
entinen
former
kahvimylly
coffee grinder
Questions & Answers about Uusi kahvimylly on entistä nopeampi.
How exactly does entistä nopeampi mean "faster than before"?
The word entistä is the partitive form of entinen, meaning "former" or "previous". In Finnish, you can express "than X" by putting X in the partitive case before the comparative adjective. So, entistä nopeampi literally translates to "faster than the previous (one)", which we naturally translate as "faster than before".
Could I just say nopeampi kuin ennen instead?
Yes, nopeampi kuin ennen is perfectly correct and means exactly the same thing. However, using entistä plus a comparative is an extremely common, elegant structure in Finnish. Mastering it will make your Finnish sound much more natural and fluent at a B2 level.
Does entistä always stay in the partitive singular in this structure, even if the subject changes?
Yes! Because entistä acts as a fixed reference point ("than the former state or thing"), it doesn't change to agree with the subject. If you had plural coffee grinders, you would say Uudet kahvimyllyt ovat entistä nopeampia. The subject and comparative adjective become plural, but entistä remains exactly the same.
Why isn't nopeampi in the partitive case to match entistä?
The comparative adjective nopeampi describes the subject of the sentence, Uusi kahvimylly, which is in the nominative case. The word entistä is only in the partitive case because it serves as the standard of comparison ("than the former"). They serve completely different grammatical roles here, so they don't need to agree in case.
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