Breakdown of Mitä enemmän harjoittelen suomea, sitä vahvemmaksi kielitaitoni kasvaa.
Questions & Answers about Mitä enemmän harjoittelen suomea, sitä vahvemmaksi kielitaitoni kasvaa.
This is a very common Finnish correlative construction.
- Mitä enemmän X, sitä Y ≈ The more X, the more/ the (adjective)-er Y
In the sentence:
- Mitä enemmän harjoittelen suomea, sitä vahvemmaksi kielitaitoni kasvaa.
→ The more I practice Finnish, the stronger my language skills grow.
You can think of it as two parts that “belong together”:
- Mitä enemmän = the more (that)
- sitä vahvemmaksi = the (that much) stronger
Other examples:
Mitä vähemmän nukun, sitä väsyneempi olen.
→ The less I sleep, the more tired I am.Mitä nopeammin lähdemme, sitä aikaisemmin olemme perillä.
→ The faster we leave, the earlier we arrive.
In this construction, mitä is not a normal “what?” question word. It’s part of a fixed comparative pattern:
- mitä + comparative … sitä + comparative
Here:
- mitä enemmän = the more (that)
- sitä vahvemmaksi = the (that much) stronger
You don’t add a separate “that” or subject after mitä. The implied subject is already in the following verb:
- harjoittelen already contains -n, meaning I (minä).
So literally, the structure is closer to:
- As to what extent I practice more, to that extent my language skills grow stronger.
But in natural English we just say: The more I practice Finnish, the stronger my language skills grow.
Suomea is the partitive case of suomi (Finnish).
In Finnish, when you practice a language, you nearly always use the partitive:
- harjoitella suomea = to practice Finnish
- harjoitella englantia = to practice English
- harjoitella ruotsia = to practice Swedish
The partitive often appears with:
- activities that are ongoing or unbounded
- verbs where you’re working on something rather than completely doing/finishing it
Practicing a language is an open-ended process, not a clearly completed action, so partitive is natural here.
Saying harjoittelen suomi would be incorrect. The verb harjoitella simply selects the partitive for its object in this meaning.
Kielitaitoni is made up of:
- kieli = language
- taito = skill
- kielitaito = language skill / language proficiency (a compound noun)
- kielitaito + ni → kielitaitoni = my language skill(s)
The -ni is a possessive suffix meaning my.
So:
- kielitaito = language skill
- kielitaitoni = my language skill / my language proficiency
In more detail:
- kielitaitoni kasvaa = my language skills grow
Finnish often uses possessive suffixes instead of (or in addition to) separate pronouns like minun (my).
Vahvemmaksi is the translative case of vahvempi (stronger).
Breakdown:
- vahva = strong
- vahvempi = stronger (comparative)
- vahvemmaksi = into/to become stronger (translative case)
The translative (-ksi) is used for:
- a change of state: something changes into something, becomes something
- expressing the new state you end up in
Here, the verb kasvaa (to grow) describes a gradual change:
- kielitaitoni kasvaa vahvemmaksi
→ my language skills grow stronger
→ literally: my language skills grow into a stronger state
So:
- vahvempi alone = stronger (as a property)
- vahvemmaksi = to a stronger state / into being stronger
The translative fits naturally with verbs like tulla (to become), muuttua (to change into), kasvaa (to grow into), e.g.:
- Hän tuli iloiseksi. = He/She became happy.
- Päivä muuttui kylmemmäksi. = The day turned colder.
Kasvaa literally means to grow, but with abstract nouns it often has the meaning to increase / to develop / to become more X.
Here, kielitaito (language skill) is something that can:
- kasvaa = grow, increase, develop
When you add a translative adjective:
- kielitaitoni kasvaa vahvemmaksi
→ my language skills grow into being stronger
→ natural English: my language skills grow stronger / my language skills become stronger
This pattern is very common:
Itsetuntoni kasvaa vahvemmaksi.
→ My self-confidence grows stronger.Suhteemme kasvoi läheisemmäksi.
→ Our relationship grew closer.
Harjoittelen is the 1st person singular present tense of the verb harjoitella (to practice).
Breakdown:
- dictionary form: harjoitella (type 3 verb)
- verb stem: harjoittele-
- personal ending for I: -n → harjoittelen = I practice / I am practicing
Finnish present tense covers both:
- I practice Finnish every day.
- I am practicing Finnish now.
So harjoittelen suomea can translate as either I practice Finnish or I am practicing Finnish, depending on context.
Finnish is a pro-drop language: the subject is often omitted because it is encoded in the verb ending.
In harjoittelen:
- harjoittele- = verb stem
- -n = 1st person singular ending → I
That means minä (I) is usually unnecessary unless:
- you want to emphasize it: Juuri minä harjoittelen suomea. (I, specifically, practice Finnish.)
- there might otherwise be ambiguity
So:
- Harjoittelen suomea. = I practice Finnish.
- Harjoittelet suomea. = You (sg.) practice Finnish.
- Harjoittelemme suomea. = We practice Finnish.
You can always add the pronoun for emphasis or clarity:
- Minä harjoittelen suomea.
Yes, that word order is possible and still correct:
- Kielitaitoni kasvaa sitä vahvemmaksi, mitä enemmän harjoittelen suomea.
Finnish word order is fairly flexible, and both versions are natural:
- Mitä enemmän harjoittelen suomea, sitä vahvemmaksi kielitaitoni kasvaa.
- Kielitaitoni kasvaa sitä vahvemmaksi, mitä enemmän harjoittelen suomea.
Differences are mainly in focus:
- Version 1 starts by highlighting the condition (the more I practice…).
- Version 2 starts with the result (my language skills grow stronger…).
The mitä X, sitä Y structure stays intact in both; you just move the clause around.
Yes, in standard Finnish punctuation you normally put a comma between two clauses:
- Mitä enemmän harjoittelen suomea, sitä vahvemmaksi kielitaitoni kasvaa.
Each half acts like a clause:
- Mitä enemmän harjoittelen suomea = the more I practice Finnish
- sitä vahvemmaksi kielitaitoni kasvaa = the stronger my language skills grow
Finnish comma rules are often stricter than English. Even if English might sometimes omit the comma in a similar sentence, Finnish normally keeps it.
Yes, and it’s grammatically fine, but the nuance is slightly different.
Mitä enemmän harjoittelen suomea, sitä vahvemmaksi kielitaitoni kasvaa.
→ focuses on the quality/state of the skill: it becomes stronger.Mitä enemmän harjoittelen suomea, sitä enemmän kielitaitoni kasvaa.
→ literally: the more I practice Finnish, the more my language skills grow.
→ focuses more on the amount/degree of growth rather than explicitly saying they become “stronger”.
Both are understandable. The version with vahvemmaksi is more natural if you want to emphasize improving / getting stronger.