Questions & Answers about Tämä tapa on nopeampi.
In this sentence, tapa means “way” in the sense of method / way of doing something.
Common meanings of tapa include:
- way, method, manner
- Tämä tapa on nopeampi. = This way/method is faster.
- habit
- Minulla on huono tapa juoda liikaa kahvia. = I have a bad habit of drinking too much coffee.
- custom, convention
- Suomalainen tapa on ottaa kengät pois sisällä. = The Finnish custom is to take shoes off indoors.
In your sentence, the context almost certainly points to method/way, not habit or custom.
- nopea = fast
- nopeampi = faster (comparative)
So:
Tämä tapa on nopea. = This way is fast.
(Just states that it is fast.)Tämä tapa on nopeampi. = This way is faster.
(Compares it to some other way, even if the other way is not mentioned.)
Your sentence uses the comparative to say that this way is faster than some alternative (maybe already known from context).
Yes, you can say Tämä on nopeampi tapa, and it is grammatically correct.
Tämä tapa on nopeampi.
Literally: This way is faster.
Focus is more on “this way” as the topic, then you describe it as faster.Tämä on nopeampi tapa.
Literally: This is a faster way.
You start with “this” (maybe pointing at something or referring back to a previous idea) and then identify it as “a faster way”.
In everyday speech, both are very natural and the difference in meaning is minimal; it’s more about information structure / emphasis, not about grammar correctness.
The word tapa is in the nominative singular here because:
- It is the subject of the sentence.
- The sentence is a simple “A is B” structure:
Tämä tapa (A) on nopeampi (B).
In Finnish, in such basic copular (“X is Y”) sentences:
- The subject is in nominative:
- Tämä tapa on nopea.
- The predicative adjective is also in nominative:
- nopea, nopeampi, nopein etc.
Forms you might see elsewhere:
- tavan = genitive singular (“of the way”)
- tavan mukaan = according to the way / convention
- tapaa = partitive singular
- Yritän muuttaa tapaa. = I’m trying to change the way.
But in your sentence, nominative is required: Tämä tapa on nopeampi.
nopeampi is the comparative form of the adjective nopea (“fast”).
Formation (basic pattern):
- nopea → nopeampi
(stem nopea-- suffix -mpi → nopeampi)
Key points:
- The comparative suffix is -mpi.
- In this basic example, the form nopeampi itself does not change for gender or number (Finnish has no grammatical gender, and adjectives don’t change for singular/plural in this simple nominative predicative use).
- It can take case endings in other contexts:
- nopeampaa, nopeammassa, etc., depending on the role in the sentence.
- Here it stays nopeampi because it’s a predicative adjective in nominative, matching the subject tämä tapa.
So:
Tämä tapa on nopeampi. = “This way is faster.”
You use kuin = “than”.
Examples:
Tämä tapa on nopeampi kuin tuo.
= This way is faster than that (one).Tämä tapa on nopeampi kuin tuo tapa.
= This way is faster than that way.
You can drop the second tapa if it’s obvious from context, just like in English.
Structure:
[subject in nominative] + on + [comparative adjective] + kuin + [thing compared to]
→ Tämä tapa on nopeampi kuin tuo.
All three are demonstrative pronouns (like “this/that/it” in English), but they show different degrees of distance and discourse status.
Very roughly:
tämä = this (near me / us, or very “present” in focus)
- Tämä tapa on nopeampi. = This way is faster.
tuo = that (visible but not near the speaker)
- Tuo tapa on hitaampi. = That way is slower. (maybe over there)
se = that / it (often something already known or not necessarily visible)
- Se tapa oli hankala. = That way / It was difficult.
So if the way you are talking about is very much the one you are currently focusing on (pointing at a method/process you just mentioned), tämä tapa is natural.
You need the superlative of nopea:
- nopea = fast
- nopeampi = faster
- nopein = the fastest
So:
- Tämä tapa on nopein.
= This way is the fastest.
The pattern is:
nopea → nopein (stem + -in for superlative, with some vowel changes depending on the adjective).
Approximate pronunciation (IPA):
- Tämä → [ˈtæmæ]
- tapa → [ˈtɑpɑ]
- on → [on]
- nopeampi → [ˈnopeɑmpi]
Whole sentence: [ˈtæmæ ˈtɑpɑ on ˈnopeɑmpi]
Notes:
- Stress is always on the first syllable of each word: TÄ-mä, TA-pa, ON, NO-pe-am-pi.
- ä is like a in “cat” (more fronted): [æ].
- a is a back [ɑ], a bit like the a in British English “father”.
- In careful standard speech, the -ea- in nopea / nopeampi is pronounced as two vowels in sequence: [eɑ], not as one diphthong.
Tapa can mean habit, but in practice:
- “This habit is faster” is a bit odd even in English.
- If you meant something like “This habit makes things go faster”, Finnish would very likely use a different structure (for example involving tottumus “habit”, or rephrasing with “if you do it this way, it’s faster”).
So while tapa has the dictionary meaning habit,
Tämä tapa on nopeampi is normally understood as “This way/method is faster”, not about personal habits.
If you specifically meant “habit”, you’d normally explain more, or phrase it differently.
In Finnish, the verb olla (“to be”) is normally required in sentences of the type “X is Y”.
- Tämä tapa on nopeampi.
This way is faster.
If you omit on:
- Tämä tapa nopeampi
→ This is incorrect in standard Finnish.
There are some very specific ellipsis contexts (e.g. headlines, labels, very telegraphic style) where verbs can be dropped, but in normal sentences you must use on (or another correct form of olla).
If you want to say something like “Doing it this way goes faster”, Finnish often uses an adverb:
- nopeasti = fast (adverb)
- nopeammin = faster (adverb; comparative of nopeasti)
Example:
- Tällä tavalla se käy nopeammin.
= In this way it goes faster. / If you do it this way, it goes faster.
Compare:
Tämä tapa on nopeampi.
= This way is faster. (adjective, describing the “way”)Tällä tavalla se käy nopeammin.
= By this way, it goes faster. (adverb, describing how it goes)
Both are natural; they just focus slightly differently (the first on “the way”, the second on the process/result).