Level: beginner
Comparative adjectives
We use comparative adjectives to show change or make comparisons:
This car is certainly better, but it's much more expensive.
I'm feeling happier now.
We need a bigger garden.
We use than when we want to compare one thing with another:
She is two years older than me.
New York is much bigger than Boston.
He is a better player than Ronaldo.
France is a bigger country than Britain.
When we want to describe how something or someone changes we can use two comparatives with and:
The balloon got bigger and bigger.
Everything is getting more and more expensive.
Grandfather is looking older and older.
We often use the with comparative adjectives to show that one thing depends on another:
The faster you drive, the more dangerous it is.
(= When you drive faster, it is more dangerous.)The higher they climbed, the colder it got.
(= When they climbed higher, it got colder.)
- Comparative adjectives 1
- Comparative adjectives 2
Superlative adjectives
We use the with superlative adjectives:
It was the happiest day of my life.
Everest is the highest mountain in the world.
That’s the best film I have seen this year.
I have three sisters: Jan is the oldest and Angela is the youngest.
- Superlative adjectives 1
- Superlative adjectives 2
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How to form comparative and superlative adjectives
We usually add –er and –est to one-syllable words to make comparatives and superlatives:
| old | older | oldest |
| long | longer | longest |
If an adjective ends in –e, we add –r or –st:
| nice | nicer | nicest |
| large | larger | largest |
If an adjective ends in a vowel and a consonant, we double the consonant:
| big | bigger | biggest |
| fat | fatter | fattest |
If an adjective ends in a consonant and –y, we change –y to –i and add –er or –est:
| happy | happier | happiest |
| silly | sillier | silliest |
We use more and most to make comparatives and superlatives for most two syllable adjectives and for all adjectives with three or more syllables:
| careful | more careful | most careful |
| interesting | more interesting | most interesting |
However, with these common two-syllable adjectives, you can either add –er/–r and –est/–st or use more and most:
| common cruel gentle handsome likely |
narrow pleasant polite simple stupid |
He is certainly handsomer than his brother.
His brother is handsome, but he is more handsome.
She is one of the politest people I have ever met.
She is the most polite person I have ever met.
The adjectives good, bad and far have irregular comparatives and superlatives:
| good | better | best |
| bad | worse | worst |
| far | farther/further | farthest/furthest |
- How to form comparative and superlative adjectives
Hi .
This is regarding the use of the adjective' late 'in the comparative and superlative degrees.
Some sources have mentioned it as later and latest (time)or latter and last (position).
Can u kindly explain it with example sentences.
Thanks.
Hello paddyjosy,
'Later' refers to time. It is often used as an adverb: See you later!
When used as an adjective it is the opposite of 'earlier': Do you want to go to the earlier performance or the later one?
'Latest' means the most recent: Have you heard the latest news? / I just bought her latest novel. It's great!
As you say, 'latter' is most often used to refer to the second item when two are mentioned. Its opposite is 'former': Would you prefer tea or coffee? > The latter, please.
'Latter' can also refer to the something occurring nearer to the end of something than the beginning: The latter part of the century was more stable / In his latter years he suffered from heart disease.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Thanks a lot Peter.
It was helpful.
But is there a comparative and superlative degree for the adjective 'late'?
Hello again paddyjosy,
The comparative and superlative forms of 'late' are later and latest.
'Latter' does not have comparative or superlative forms. There is an adverb (latterly) which is a formal synonym for recently.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Thanks once again for the prompt reply Peter.
It's really confusing though that 'later' means afterwards and 'latest' means the most recent ,hence a change in meaning all together.
Hello Peter
Is this usage correct ?
No other programme is as late as ours.
Our performance is later than all other programmes .
Other programmes are the latest.
Hello paddyjosy,
Yes, the use of the different forms of 'late' are all correct in these sentences. I might suggest 'The latest programmes are other ones' for the last sentence because 'latest' meaning 'most recent' is more common than the meaning that refers to time, but your sentence would be fine in context and in any case is grammatically correct.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Thanks for the explanation.Indeed a wonderful resoirce for grammar . Keep up.the good work.
*resource
Hello. In this sentence
"Lisa is the........of the two sisters" the choices were "1.young 2.more young 3.as young as 4.younger" So I believe there's no correct answer of them because that's a superlative case not comparative as the "two sisters" is the whole group therefore "Lisa" isn't compared with the other sister but preferred over the whole group "the other sister" and the usage of "the" before the adjective and "of" after it means it's superlative and a colleague of mine think it's just comparative because they are only "two sisters" so my question is "Is it acceptable to use the preposition 'of' after the comparative form of adjective?". Thanks in advance.
Hi Roman...
Yes, you could say "Lisa is the youngest of the two sisters". However, it may be considered non-standard and incorrect. A more standard answer would be to say "Lisa is the younger of the two sisters". As there are only two sisters and one is compared with the other, it is a comparative case. Yes, it is fine to use "the + comparative adj. + of" if there are exactly two things being compared.
I hope that helps.
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi. Could please explain me whether adjectives that already mean the quality in its highest degree can be used with comparative and superlative degrees? For example, excellent. The word excellent already means 'extremely good'. So can it be used with degrees of comparison? Can somthing be more excelllent, the most excellent? And there some other adjectives such as superb, gorgeous, wonderful etc. Thank you.
Hello tmaryna,
Yes, it's possible to use modifiers such as 'most' or 'absolutely' with many extreme adjectives such as 'excellent', and there are certainly many examples of this in speaking and writing. But I would recommend not doing this frequently in your writing or speaking, as too much use of these forms can give a poor impression and undermine your message.
You might find the explanation on our Adjectives – gradable and non-gradable page useful; it gives a few more examples.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Greetings, team!
I have a question about the use of the word "less" in comparatives for monosyllabic adjectives in certain contexts, for example:
--Now that the AC is on, the room feels less hot than before.
--I feel less happy nowadays than when I was a teenager.
Is it possible to express this, or should it be changed for a more 'accurate' means of expression?
Hello Aramis Soto,
Both of these sentences are fine. I'm not sure why, but I think most native speakers tend to negate the verb rather than use 'less' in statements such as these.
In other words, instead of these two sentences, I'd probably say 'the room isn't as hot as before' and 'I don't feel as happy nowadays as I did when I was a teenager'.
But there is absolutely nothing wrong with the two statements that you ask about.
I hope that answers your question, but if not, please ask again.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
I would to thank all amazing teacher here , they are doing a great work and fantastic job and if they allow me i have two question :
Q1 : can anyone explain to me in the word cleaner why we don’t double the letter n according to the grammar because it’s end with vowel and consonant letters .
Q2 :can we add more and most to single syllable adjectives?.
Hello g-ssan,
We're glad you find our site helpful!
Regarding your first question, you have to consider the last three letters of the adjective (in this case, 'ean'). If they are consonant, vowel, consonant, then we typically double the final consonant. But in the case of 'clean', we have vowel, vowel, consonant instead of consonant, vowel, consonant and therefore the correct spelling is 'cleaner'.
As for your second question, in general, no, we don't use 'more' or 'most' with one syllable adjectives. There are some exceptions to this (for example, we don't say 'funner', but rather 'more fun'), but people don't do this with most one-syllable adjectives; typically say 'more clean', 'more big', etc.
Hope this helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello, I recently presented a MOC test for a certification, and in one of the Academic Readings, I found a paragraph that said:
The most, moist air there is, ……..
And I thought to my self : Is that possible?
Would it be : The warmer ?
Hope you can help me please, as I was looking for an answer in several books and dictionaries but I couldn’t find any reference for: warm, where said, it could be used with er / or more
Hello Gilly,
Are you asking what word should go in the gap? I'm afraid it's difficult for me to say without knowing a bit more. And is there really a comma between 'most' and 'moist'?
In any case, we usually say 'warmer' rather than 'more warm', but the latter isn't wrong.
I'm sorry I can't help you more with this, but I don't really understand what the task is here.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Thanks a lot !
Regards from Mexico
Thank you for your good question.the answer is simply we double the last letter only with words that have one syllable with a short vowel in .such as thin fat big while clean has a long vowel.
Could someone please explain to me why worse is used here?
my cold is definitely worse this morning.
Hello jayashan_b,
I understand this to mean 'Compared to yesterday or last night, the symptoms of my cold are worse.' Perhaps the person is coughing more or their nose is more congested, for example. The word 'cold' is a noun here (illness).
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Sir
Could you please help me with these following examples ?Are both of them correct?
1.There house is no bigger than ours
2.There house is not bigger than ours
Another question-Can we use "far" instead of "a lot" with comparatives?Like instead of saying "I feel a lot better ", can we use this one "I feel far better "?
Hello Faii,
Please note that in both sentences 'There' is not correct -- it should be 'Their' -- but 'is no bigger' and 'is not bigger' are both correct. 'is no bigger' is another way of saying 'isn't any bigger' and suggests the two houses are roughly the same size. 2 just says their house is not bigger; it could mean they are the same size or that theirs is smaller.
Yes, you can also use 'far' with comparative adjectives to intensify the adjective. You can read about this and other intensifiers on the Intensifiers page, the next page in this section.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello, Sir.
I was wondering what the differences between "the best" and "best" are.
1. Vegetables are best for your health.
2. Vegetables are the best for your health.
3. Vegetables are best food for your health.
4. Vegetables are the best food for your health.
I wanted to know if the 4 sentences are right. Is it possible to form the superlatives without "the"?
Thank you for your precious time.
Best Wishes!
Hello Sokhom,
We always use 'the' when the superlative ('best') is followed by a noun:
Thus, sentence 3 is incorrect and sentence 4 is correct.
Sentences 1 and 2 are both acceptable and there is no difference in meaning in this context
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Your explanation is really a big help. Thank you very much, Sir. :)
Hello sir,
First of all thank you team for helping us.
Please clarify following question
My confusion about this question:
In the third option i.e. —
“none shows more”
should be replaced with
"no other animal shows"
Then the sentence will be correct as in comparative degree “NO OTHER THAN ” will be a better choice.
Question is given below:
Direction: In the sentence identify the segment which
contains the grammatical error.
Cows are amongst the gentlest of animals; none shows more passionate tenderness towards their young ones.
1. the gentlest of animals
2. Cows are amongst
3. none shows more
4. towards their young
Hello abhay,
The error here is one of verb agreement. 'None' refers to 'animals' and so the verb needs to be plural; 'shows' is singular.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello. Could you please help me? Is the following sentence correct? If so, what is its meaning? I feel that it's meaningless!
- My car is less small than yours.
Thank you.
Hello Ahmed Imam,
In most situations, that would be wrong -- instead, you could say 'My car is smaller than yours'.
In certain informal contexts, though, native speakers might say something like this. For example, if two friends are comparing their two different cars and in theory both cars have the same space inside them but one friend wants to say her car feels bigger than her friend's car, she could say this.
Hope this helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Dear Sir,
"City breaks are more popular with tourists than with locals."
Can I use "with" after "than" in this case?
Thanks!
Hello giangnguyen.tigt,
Yes, you can use '...than with...' as well as just '...than...'
As the second 'with' is implied there's no need to repeat it, but it's fine to include it. It's really a stylistic choice.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Nevi,
I think the best way to understand the sentence is as a reduced relative clause:
...patients who are infected with DELTA....
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Nevi,
Not all grammarians use the term 'reduced relative clause' for examples like these, preferring to describe them as 'participle phrases'. As this name implies, they are headed by a participle and this can be a present participle (-ing form) or a past participle (third form of the verb).
The difference is that the -ing form has an active meaning (in your example: who want > wanting) while the third form has a passive meaning (in the original example: who are infected > infected).
There is a good summary on the relevant wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_relative_clause
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Nevi,
A person can be infected by a virus. However, I didn't say that it was a passive verb form; I said that it has a passive meaning. In other words the participle represents something that happens to the subject (the person is infected) rather than something that the subject does (the person wants something).
As I mentioned, the term 'reduced relative clause' is not one which is universally accepted. You can find it in traditional grammars but many modern grammars prefer to avoid it, and one of the reasons is because it can lead to ambiguity of this kind.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Mussorie,
The meaning is only slightly different. In sentence 2, deep clearly describes roots. But in sentence 1, it doesn't, because it's very unusual to put deep directly after the noun it is intended to describe (it's normally put before the noun, in attributive position). Somebody reading sentence 1 will interpret deep as referring to in the rich culture of India, not to roots. So, we need to clarify what the writer intends to describe with the word deep.
I should also point out that in sentence 1, deep is not properly called a predicative adjective, because a predicative adjective needs to follow a copula verb (e.g. Their roots are deep). Adjectives that follow a noun directly (without a copula verb) are called postpositive adjectives. There are not many of them, and they mostly occur in fixed phrases (e.g.: the manager responsible / persons unknown / the attorney general), or after pronouns (e.g. something interesting) or superlatives (e.g. the best option available).
Most adjectives can be put in either attributive or predicative position, with no change in meaning (e.g. an expensive restaurant / the restaurant is expensive). Some adjectives can be put in attributive position only (e.g. mere) or in predicative position only (e.g. afraid).
I hope that helps.
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Mussorie,
No, in sentence 1 deep is actually an adverb. It’s at the head of the adverb phrase deep in the rich culture of India. This whole phrase modifies have their roots.
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Mussorie,
Actually, I think you’re right and I’ve changed my mind. Yes, it could be an adjective and an object complement.
The complement could be the whole phrase: deep in the rich culture of India.
Or, the complement could be just deep, with in the rich culture of India as a separate prepositional phrase.
The context in which this sentence is said will likely show which way of interpreting the sentence is the intended one but on reading this sentence in isolation, I understand it the first way – with deep modifying in the rich culture of India.
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Nevı,
Yes! All these sentences are correct :)
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Nevı,
Yes, in my opinion it seems useful! But you are the best person to decide whether it is useful for you, based on whether it gives you the information you are looking for, how clear it is, how easy it is to use, etc.
For word families, here is another resource you can try out: British Council's Word Family Framework. If you search for a word (e.g. melting), it will show you other words in the same word family.
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team