Questions & Answers about Pidän eniten kahvista.
Kahvista is in the elative case (the “out of / from” case), which typically has the ending -sta / -stä.
With the verb pitää in the sense of “to like”, Finnish uses the pattern:
- pitää + elative (mistä?)
- Pidän kahvista. = I like coffee. (literally: I like from coffee.)
So you must say kahvista, not kahvi or kahvia, after pidän when it means to like.
Formally:
- kahvi (nominative, dictionary form)
- stem: kahvi-
- elative: kahvi
- sta → kahvista
Finnish usually drops personal pronouns when the verb ending already shows the person.
- pidän already means “I like”:
- minä pidän = I like
- sinä pidät = you (sg) like
- hän pitää = he/she likes
So Pidän eniten kahvista naturally means “I like coffee the most”; the minä is understood from -n at the end of pidän.
You can add the pronoun for emphasis or clarity:
- Minä pidän eniten kahvista. = I (as opposed to someone else) like coffee the most.
Eniten is the superlative form of paljon (much/a lot) via the comparison series:
- paljon = much / a lot
- enemmän = more
- eniten = most
In this sentence:
- Pidän eniten kahvista.
Literally: I like coffee the most (of all).
So eniten is an adverb modifying the verb pidän, saying to the greatest degree / more than anything else (in the context).
Yes, all of these are grammatically correct and commonly used; the difference is in emphasis:
Pidän eniten kahvista.
Neutral, common order. Slight emphasis on eniten (the degree: “the most”).Pidän kahvista eniten.
A bit more emphasis on kahvista as the thing being compared to others. Feels like “Of all the things, coffee is the one I like the most.”Eniten pidän kahvista.
Strongest emphasis on eniten and kahvista together. Very clear “The thing I like most of all is coffee.”
Meaning-wise, they all express the same idea; word order mainly tunes focus and emphasis, not basic grammar here.
Because with pitää meaning “to like”, Finnish requires the elative case (mistä?) for the thing you like:
- ✅ Pidän eniten kahvista. (I like coffee the most.)
- ❌ Pidän eniten kahvi. (wrong case)
- ❌ Pidän eniten kahvia. (wrong pattern for this verb/meaning)
Compare:
- Pidän kahvista. = I like coffee.
- Pidän kahvia kalliina. = I consider coffee expensive. (here pitää means to consider, and kahvia is partitive for a different pattern.)
So it’s not random: “to like something” = pitää jostakin → elative is obligatory: kahvista.
The infinitive (dictionary form) is pitää, but in the 1st person singular it appears as pidän. This is a regular consonant gradation and vowel alternation pattern in Finnish:
- infinitive: pitää
- 1st person sg: pidän
- 2nd person sg: pidät
- 3rd person sg: pitää
So:
- pitää → stem pidä- (in pidän, pidät, pidämme, pidätte)
- but pitää again in the 3rd person (hän pitää)
When you see pidän in a context like Pidän kahvista, you can safely link it back to the dictionary verb pitää “to like / to hold / to keep / to consider” and infer from context which meaning is intended.
Pitää has several meanings, but the case of the noun and the sentence pattern tell you which one is used.
to like
- structure: pitää + elative (mistä?)
- Pidän kahvista. = I like coffee.
to hold / keep (physically)
- structure: pitää + object (usually partitive or genitive)
- Pidän kupin kädessäni. = I’m holding the cup in my hand.
to consider (someone/something as something)
- structure: pitää + partitive + essive
- Pidän kahvia kalliina. = I consider coffee expensive.
In Pidän eniten kahvista, the verb is followed by kahvista (elative), so it clearly has the “to like” meaning.
Pidän kahvista.
= I like coffee. (a simple statement of liking)Pidän eniten kahvista.
= I like coffee the most (of all options being considered).
The second sentence adds a comparative context: among several things (e.g. coffee, tea, juice), coffee is your top preference.
If the context is clear, you might only say:
- Pidän kahvista eniten. (in answer to “Which drink do you like most?”)
Grammatically, eniten mainly modifies the verb pidän (it tells how much you like it).
Semantically, it also implies a comparison among different possible objects (coffee vs tea vs something else), which naturally makes us think of kahvista as “the winner”.
So:
- pidän = I like
- pidän eniten = I like the most
- pidän eniten kahvista = Of the relevant things, I like coffee the most.
You can think of the core as: “Of all, it’s coffee that I like most.”
Yes, you can; the meaning is very similar.
- tykätä + elative (mistä?) works like pitää + elative (mistä?).
Examples:
- Pidän eniten kahvista.
- Tykkään eniten kahvista.
Both mean: I like coffee the most.
Differences:
- pitää is slightly more neutral / standard, often used in written language and formal contexts too.
- tykätä is very common in everyday spoken Finnish, slightly more colloquial in feel.
For everyday speech, you’ll hear Tykkään eniten kahvista all the time. For neutral written Finnish, Pidän eniten kahvista is perfect.
Using the same pattern:
Pidän eniten teestä.
= I like tea the most.Pidän eniten kahvista.
= I like coffee the most.
For the negative:
- En pidä kahvista eniten.
Literally: I don’t like coffee the most.
(Implies: something else is your top preference.)
You could also say explicitly what you prefer:
- En pidä kahvista eniten, vaan teestä.
= I don’t like coffee the most, but tea.
Kahvi follows a regular pattern for the elative case:
- nominative (base form): kahvi
- add elative ending -sta → kahvista
General rule:
- if a word ends in a vowel, you usually just add -sta / -stä:
- talo → talosta (house → from the house)
- huone → huoneesta (room → from the room)
- bussi → bussista (from the bus)
- kahvi → kahvista (from coffee)
So there’s no stem change here; it’s simply:
- kahvi
- sta → kahvista.