Comparative Adjectives

Comparative adjectives: one syllable adjectives

When comparing two items in English we obviously use adjectives so we change the form of the adjective when comparing items in English.

Normally, one syllable adjective will take –er as part of the following construction:

• My wife is stronger than me 

Adjectives ending in a consonant (a letter that isn't a,e,i,o,u) add the same letter again in the comparative form. For example:

• All my new friends are thinner than my old friends

Comparative adjectives: two syllable adjectives

Two syllable adjectives follow both the one syllable and 3+ syllable patterns (see below) so often they have to be remembered.

• He is more stupid than I thought

• She is crazier than I thought

Adjectives ending in -y are modified by adding an -i to the -er pattern like this:

• My Bank manager is happier than my children

Comparative adjectives: three or more syllable adjectives

Longer adjectives use ‘more' in their construction and the form of the adjective used does not change. For example:

• English is sometimes more difficult than I thought

• My smartphone is more annoying than my mother

• Her new boyfriend is more handsome than your new boyfriend

Using irregular comparative forms

We will look at irregular adjectives which change their form when used in comparative sentences:

Describing bigger differences 

To add more detail to your comparative sentences, you could describe bigger differences by using ‘a lot/much/far' like this:

• The Chinese economy is far bigger than The British economy

• Hippies are much lazier than hipsters

• German people are a lot more organized than the rest of the world 

Describing smaller differences

To describe small differences between things we can use ‘a little/a little bit/slightly' in the following ways:

• The Earth is slightly closer to the Sun than Mars

• The world is a little bit hotter than last year