Comparative adjectives

Do you know how to use comparative adjectives like older, better and more interesting? Test what you know with interactive exercises and read the explanation to help you.

Look at these examples to see how we use comparative adjectives.

The city is more interesting than the countryside.
This house is older than my house.
She's better at cooking now than before.

Try this exercise to test your grammar.

Grammar test 1: Grammar A1-A2: Comparative adjectives: 1

Read the explanation to learn more.

Grammar explanation

We use comparative adjectives to compare two things or show change. The comparative form depends on the number of syllables in the adjective.

Adjectives with one syllable

To make comparative forms with one-syllable adjectives, we usually add -er:

old → older
clean → cleaner
slow → slower

If an adjective ends in -e, we add -r:

safe → safer
nice → nicer

If an adjective ends in a vowel and a consonant, we usually double the consonant:

big → bigger
hot → hotter

Adjectives with two or more syllables

If a two-syllable adjective ends in a consonant and -y, we change -y to -i and add -er:

noisy → noisier
happy → happier
easy → easier

We use more to make comparative forms for most other two-syllable adjectives and for all adjectives with three or more syllables:

crowded → more crowded
stressful → more stressful
dangerous → more dangerous

Exception: You can either add -er/-r or use more with some two-syllable adjectives, such as common, cruel, gentle, handsome, likely, narrow, pleasant, polite, simple and stupid.

I think life in the countryside is simpler than in the city.
It's more simple to live in the city because everything you need is there.

Irregular adjectives

The adjectives good, bad and far have irregular comparative forms:

good → better
bad → worse
far → further/farther

Than

When we want to say which person or thing we are comparing with, we can use than:

Their house is cleaner than ours.
Traffic is slower in the city than in the countryside.
After the race I was more tired than Anne.

Do this exercise to test your grammar again.

Grammar test 2: Grammar A1-A2: Comparative adjectives: 2

Language level

A2 Pre-intermediate

Thanks a lot, Jonathan. How do you paraphrase "more of" in the following sentences? I really want to understand this.

1. "Could" is softener, more of a suggestion.
2. It's more of a guess tham an estimate.
3. More of a nuisance than it should be. = More about nuisance.
4. She seemed to be in even more of a mood for needling me than normal.

Hi Gendeng,

It's similar to the other examples in my last message.

"Could" is a suggestion to a greater degree (than something else that is not specified in this sentence). / "Could" is more similar to a suggestion (than something else).
It's a guess to a greater degree than it is an estimate. / It's more similar to a guess than it is to an estimate.
It is a nuisance to a greater degree than it should be. / It's more similar to a nuisance than it should be.
She seemed to be in this mood to a greater degree than she normally is.

Hope that helps.

Jonathan

LearnEnglish team

It's really grate, thanks for your kind support.

Hello. Could you please help me? Which form is correct? Why?
- He is (more lazy - lazier) than stupid.
Thank you.

Hello Ahmed Imam,

There are two possibilities here.

1) 'He is lazier than he is stupid.' This is a simple comparison of a person's two qualities. The person has both qualities, but more laziness than stupidity. In your version, the words 'he is' are omitted, but we normally don't omit them in such cases.

2) 'He is more lazy than stupid.' This could have the same meaning as 1, or it could be a kind of rebuttal of someone else's assertion that this person is stupid. If you believe that this person is not stupid, but rather lazy, then you could use this sentence to say that.

Out of context, I would understand meaning 2 rather than 1.

Does that make sense?

All the best,
Kirk
LearnEnglish team