Comparing 2 adjectives in English. When we compare one adjective to another adjective, we use comparative adjectives. Note that we don’t use comparative adjectives when comparing THREE or more things. For most adjectives, we can compare them by adding +er than to the sentence. We will look at this in much more detail in Level A2, but in this course we will look at the basic information. For example:
The red car is fast. This blue car is very fast. > The blue car is faster than the red car. OR The red car is slower than the blue car.
Here are some more examples:
- Jane’s room is cleaner than John’s room.
- Jack is taller than Dave.
- A bicycle is cheaper than a car.
- My grandmother is older than my grandfather.
For longer words, we use a different rule – we add more …. than. Here are some examples:
The red car is £1000. This blue car is £15000. > The blue car is more expensive than the red car.
Here are some more examples:
- Jane’s job is more important than Anne’s job.
- Learning English is more difficult than learning German.
- Watching films is more interesting than reading books.
Be careful! Some adjectives are irregular and do not follow these rules! Here are some examples of irregular comparative adjectives:
- good > better than
- bad > worse than
- far > farther (or further)
Here are some example sentences:
- A car is better than a bicycle for traveling long distances.
- My test scores are worse than John’s scores.
- John walked 20 kilometres today, but Paul walked further than that.
To learn more about comparative adjectives, take a look at the 6 rules for using comparative adjectives in Level A2.
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