Podcast 105 - B1 B2 comparatives and superlatives

Yesterday, I had to ask a student of mine why she hadn't done her English homework. Do you know what she answered? She said, 'I thought I would do it tomorrow, because tomorrow I'll be older and wiser so I'll do it better!'. What a good excuse, I thought to myself and I gave her an A! Have you guessed the topic for today's class? Yes, it's about comparatives and also about superlatives too. This is a B1 session or a B2 revision session because I'm going to look at a few examples that sometimes can be confusing. So here we go...

You already know about comparatives and superlatives, don't you? You've been using them for years! You know how to say,

Mary is taller than John.
Penelope Cruz is the most beautiful actress in Hollywood!

There's a general rule that one syllable adjectives and adjectives that end in 'y' take the 'er' and 'est' endings and adjectives of more than one syllable must use 'more' and 'most' in front of the adjective. We always use 'than' with comparatives and the article 'the' in front of superlatives. The thing is, sometimes you come across exceptions and you wonder why they don't follow the rules. I know you know some of those exceptions. We don't say 'gooder', we say better. We don't say 'the baddest', we say the worst.

Let's have a look at those exceptions.

Exceptions on two-syllable adjectives

Boxer - comparatives and superlatives

Well, just for fun, I'm going to start with 'the baddest'. You will very occasionally hear and read 'baddest' especially when it's talking about behaviour. I admit the word is slang, but it's used.

'I'm one of the baddest, hardest-hitting heavyweights in the business,'

said the boxer Deontay Wilder after winning an important boxing match. Obviously, if he had said 'the worst', that would have referred to his quality as a boxer. He means that he's a good boxer but a very bad person!

I'm going to do a study of more conventional types of comparatives and superlatives. There's that difficult area, isn't there? Those two-syllable adjectives sometimes seem to take the 'er' and 'est' forms and sometimes the 'more' and 'most' forms. We say,

She's the most careful driver I know. (Never 'carefuller'.)
My study of comparatives and superlatives is more exact than others. (Never 'exacter'.)

but, we can say,

Einstein was one of the cleverest scientists that ever lived.
My music teacher was one of the gentlest people I have ever met.

Other two-syllable adjectives that can take the 'er' and 'est' forms are: common (commoner, commonest) and handsome (handsomer, handsomest). No real difficult rule to learn here. In fact, most two-syllable adjectives can use 'more' and 'most' including all of the ones I have just mentioned. For example:

Tom's the most clever student in the class.
The blue ski slopes are more gentle than the red ski slopes.

So a simple rule for forming the comparative and superlative of two-syllable adjectives is: use 'more' and 'most' except for the ones ending in 'y'.

Now, let's just remember. We say,

I'm happier living in the countryside because life is easier.

Two-syllable adjectives change the 'y' to 'i' plus 'er'. No problem about that rule, is there? What, however if we make the negative of those adjectives? So we have 'unhappy', for example. Well, the rule is the same. Although we now have three syllables, we can still say 'unhappier', but 'more unhappy' is also possible.

I was unhappier/more unhappy living in the city.

Other irregular comparative and superlative forms.

Firstly, there's the spelling rule that applies to most suffixes. If one-syllable adjectives end in consonant - vowel - consonant, we double the last letter:

fat, fatter, fattest,
big, bigger, biggest.

The irregular comparatives and superlatives are:

good - better - best,
bad - worse - worst,
far - farther/further - farthest/furthest

Both 'farther, further' and 'farthest, furthest' can be used in British English when we are talking about distance. In American English, only 'farther, farthest' is used with this meaning.

Aberdeen is farther/further away than Edinburgh (British English)

but,

Toronto is farther away than Montreal (US English)

However, there is the word 'further' in English that means 'more'. It's a more formal word than 'more'. In this case we cannot use 'farther'.

We'd like to request further information about the hotel.

What happens when we use words like 'less' and 'least'? The opposite of saying somebody is 'more' or 'the most' is, of course, 'less' and 'the least'.

All the other actresses in Hollywood are less attractive than Penelope Cruz!
Of all the holiday destinations you've mentioned, I think Benidorm is the least interesting.

I don't really like Benidorm, which is a holiday resort on the east coast of Spain. I think it's very touristy - I like quieter and more peaceful places to spend my holiday.

Interestingly, 'less' and 'least' don't follow the other rules for making comparisons and superlatives. It is grammatically possible to say,

I am older than you are so you are less old than me.

That sounds terrible! Grammatically possible, yes, but who says 'less old'? When we use 'less' with one-syllable adjectives, we prefer an opposite so we can use the 'er' form.

You are less old than me - You are younger than me.

That sounds better!

Sentences with comparatives

I can remember when we were at school, there used to be occasions when we used to fall out with our friends. In other words, to argue. However, we rarely got into a fight. Instead, we used to threaten each other with our fathers or our 'dads', which is a colloquial way of saying father.

'My dad is bigger than your dad!'

'Maybe. But my dad is stronger than yours!'

'Rubbish! My dad's stronger than him. Your dad is a weakling!' (which means a person who is very weak.)

Why did we threaten each other with our dads? I've no idea! Our fathers never fought each other! The point is how we used the personal pronoun when we were arguing.

My dad's stronger than him.

No what we really mean is 'my dad is stronger than he is'. So, in a very correct English, we should say,

'My dad is stronger than he'

But this sounds very formal, these days. In spoken English we prefer the object pronoun - 'him'. That means it's fine in spoken English to say,

You're older than me.

You don't have to say,

You're older than I.

Remember, though, that you must use the subject pronoun if you mention the verb.

Usain Bolt can run faster than them.
He can run faster than they can.

That's all from this podcast on comparatives for today. If you would like to learn more about comparatives, go to podcast 50, which talks about modifiers: not quite, slightly, almost, easily, a good deal, far. You know, for example, Practising English is far better than other English learning podcasts!

That's all for now! Good bye!

Exercises on comparatives and superlatives...