the more ... the easier
- idiom
:
cuanto más ... más fácil
- Parents often tell children that the more ... the easier homework will seem with steady daily practice.
Examples
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When learning a language, many students notice that the more ... the easier new words become to remember.
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If you break tasks into steps, you'll see how the more ... the easier long projects feel to manage.
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As you practice more, the more ... the easier it gets to play the piano well.
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In math, the more ... the easier complex problems become with regular study.
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The more you read, the more ... the easier it is to understand new concepts.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'more' marks an increase in degree and 'easier' marks reduced difficulty, and the correlative pattern 'the ... the ...' signals a proportional relationship between the two clauses. This is a regular comparative construction found in many languages (e.g. Spanish/French equivalents), so a B1 learner who knows the constituents and basic comparative grammar can reasonably infer the meaning.
Etymology
The saying the more ... the easier gives a simple picture: imagine learning to play the piano, and each time you try you learn a little, so the more you practice, the easier the song becomes. So, the phrase means 'as one thing increases, the action or state becomes less difficult'.
