Minä puhun suomea yhä enemmän.

I speak Finnish more and more.

Breakdown of Minä puhun suomea yhä enemmän.

• minä: I
• puhua: to speak
• suomi: Finnish
• yhä enemmän: more and more

Questions & Answers about Minä puhun suomea yhä enemmän.

Why is Minä included when Finnish often drops the subject pronoun?

In Finnish the verb ending already tells you the subject (“puhun” ends in -n, so it’s 1st person singular). Including Minä is optional and used for emphasis or clarity (e.g. to stress “I” rather than someone else).

How is the present tense formed in puhun?

Puhun comes from the verb puhua (“to speak”). To form 1st person singular present you take the verb’s stem (puhu-), add the personal ending -n, and adjust vowels if needed. There is no separate auxiliary verb like “am” in English—the simple form puhun covers both “I speak” and “I am speaking.”

Why is suomea in the partitive case instead of the nominative suomi?

Finnish uses the partitive (here suomea) for incomplete, ongoing, or unquantified actions or amounts. Speaking a language is viewed as an ongoing activity, so you say puhun suomea, not puhun suomi.

What does yhä enemmän mean, and can I use vielä enemmän or just enemmän?

Yhä enemmän literally means “increasingly” or “more and more.” You can often substitute vielä enemmän (“still more”), but yhä enemmän is more formal/standard. Using just enemmän (“more”) loses the sense of gradual increase over time.

Is the word order fixed? Could I say Puhun yhä enemmän suomea or Yhä enemmän puhun suomea?

Word order in Finnish is relatively free. Puhun yhä enemmän suomea or Yhä enemmän puhun suomea are both grammatical. Moving yhä enemmän to the front emphasizes the “increasingly” aspect, while keeping puhun first emphasizes the action.

How would I turn this sentence into a question?

You invert the verb and subject (or add -ko/-kö to the verb):
• Puhutko sinä suomea yhä enemmän? (“Are you speaking Finnish more and more?”)
• Or simply Puhutko suomea yhä enemmän? (pronoun is optional)

Can I drop suomea altogether and say Minä puhun yhä enemmän?

Yes, but it becomes vague: Minä puhun yhä enemmän means “I speak more and more,” without specifying what you’re speaking. If context makes it clear you mean Finnish, you can omit suomea.

How would I express the negative—“I don’t speak Finnish more and more”?

You’d use the negative verb en with a partitive: En puhu suomea yhä enempää. However, this is rare because it implies you once did and now you don’t keep increasing. More common is En puhu suomea enää niin paljon (“I no longer speak Finnish as much”).