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Mientras más empujan, más rápido se alejan.

Mientras más empujan, más rápido se alejan.
The more they push, the faster they move away.
From Lesson 221:Cumulative ongoing actions (venir)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about Mientras más empujan, más rápido se alejan.

Why does this sentence use mientras más instead of translating 'the more' literally?
In English, we use 'the more... the more...' to show that two things change together. In Spanish, you cannot literally say 'el más... el más...'. Instead, the most common way to express this in Latin America is with mientras más (literally 'while more') or cuanto más. So, mientras más empujan, más rápido... means 'the more they push, the faster...'.
Why is there a se before alejan?
The base verb alejar means 'to move something away' or 'to distance something.' By making it pronominal with the pronoun se, it becomes alejarse, which means 'to move oneself away' or 'to distance oneself.' Here, se alejan means 'they move away'.
Can I say rápidamente instead of rápido here?
Yes, you could say más rápidamente se alejan, but rápido is much more common in everyday speech. Even though rápido is normally an adjective (fast/quick), it frequently acts as an adverb modifying verbs, just like how in English we say 'run fast' instead of 'run fastly'.
Why are empujan and alejan in the present indicative tense rather than the subjunctive?
The indicative is used here because the sentence states a general fact or a known reality: every time they push, they move away. If you were talking about a hypothetical or unknown future event, you would use the subjunctive for the first verb: mientras más empujen....

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