The Comparative and the Superlative

One of the most common things we do in our everyday language is to compare things. It
might be comparing restaurants, candidates for a job position, or films to see at the cinema.
So how do we make comparatives and superlatives in English? Read on to find out all the
information you need about comparing.

What are comparatives and superlatives?

We use comparatives and superlatives to say how people or things are different. We use a
comparative adjective to express how two people or things are different, and we use a
superlative adjective to show how one person or thing is different to all the others of its kind.
For example,

Mick is taller than Jack.

Mick is the tallest person in the family.

Now let’s focus on the details of how to create each of these adjectives.

Comparatives

Comparative adjectives enable us to express the difference between two people or things. In
order to say that someone or something has a superior quality, size, or characteristic, you need
to use ‘more’. Instead, when you want to say that someone or something has an inferior
quality, size, or characteristic, you must use ‘less’.

More

The way we make a comparative with ‘more’ depends on the length of the word. There are
three different cases:

1) More for long adjectives.

If an adjective has two or more syllables, we add the word ‘more’ in front to create the
comparative form. For example:

This hotel is more expensive than the last hotel we stayed at.

Reading is more interesting than watching television.

The sea here is more beautiful than the sea in my country.

2) -er for short adjectives

If an adjective has one syllable, or two syllables with -y as the second syllable, we add -er to
create the comparative. For example:

Your house is bigger than mine.

Taking the bus is cheaper than taking the car.

This box is heavier than that one.

As you can see in the first example, if an adjective ends in a vowel and consonant (e.g. big) you
need to double the final consonant. For example, bigger, fatter, thinner.

3) Irregular comparatives
As is often the case in English, there are some adjectives that are irregular and don’t follow
these rules. Here are the irregular comparatives:

good – better

bad – worse

far – further (U.K. English) farther (US English)

fun – fun

For example,

Your cooking is better than my cooking.

Arriving late is worse than arriving early.

Their house is further from here than our house.

Going out is more fun than staying at home.

Using ‘than’

When you refer to the two people/things you are comparing, you need to use ‘than’. For
example,

Living in the city is better than living in the country.

But if it’s clear what you’re referring to, it’s also possible to make a comparison without
repeating one of the things, and in this case you don’t need to use ‘than’. For example,

Living in the city is more expensive.

Less

We use ‘less’ to say that someone or something has an inferior quality, size or characteristic.
It’s easy to use because you simply put ‘less’ in front of any adjective. For example:

Walking is less tiring than running.

Australia is less populated than China.

Hamburgers are less healthy than vegetables.

Superlatives

We use superlatives to compare one person or thing to several others. For example,

Paris is the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen.

This means that I’ve seen several cities and I consider Paris as the number one in terms of
being beautiful.

In a similar way to comparatives, there are two ways to use superlatives. When you want to say
that one person or thing is superior to all others in that group, you need to use ‘the most’.
When you want to say that one person or thing is inferior to all others in that group, you need
to use ‘the least’.

The most
Similarly to comparatives, we use ‘the most’ in different ways according to the length of the
adjectives:

1) The most for long adjectives.

If an adjective has two or more syllables, we add ‘the most’ in front to create the superlative
form. For example:

She’s the most determined candidate we’ve seen today.

It’s the most difficult part of my job.

This is the most successful year the company’s ever had.

2) -est for short adjectives

If an adjective has one syllable, or two syllables with -y as the second syllable, we add -est to
create the superlative. For example:

It’s the shortest route to the stadium.

What’s the longest flight you’ve ever taken?

He’s the nicest guy I’ve met here.

As with comparatives, if an adjective ends in a vowel and consonant (e.g. sad) you need to
double the final consonant. For example, saddest, fittest, hottest.

3) Irregular superlatives

The same adjectives that are irregular for comparatives are also irregular for the superlative
form:

good – best

bad – worst

far – furthest (U.K. English) farthest (US English)

fun – fun

Here are some examples:

Is this the best place to eat in town?

Yesterday’s performance was my worst ever.

Alaska is the furthest state from Florida.

That was the most fun I’ve had in a long time!

The least

We use ‘the least’ to say that someone or something has an inferior quality, size or
characteristic compared to all others of its type. Simply put ‘the least’ in front of any adjective.
For example:

Cleaning the floor is my least favorite type of housework.

The least difficult tense in English is the present simple.

He’s the least active person I know. He’s very lazy.

As … as

There is another way to compare people and things in English which is using as + adjective
+ as. We use this form to say that things are or aren’t the same. For example:

I’m as tall as my brother. (We are the same height.)

This book isn’t as good as that one. (The quality of the books is not the same.)

Are you as hungry as I am? (Are we hungry in the same way?)

Using comparatives, superlatives and as + as.

Here are some examples of each of these forms with the same adjective:

‘Nice’

My new neighbors are nicer than the last ones.

The previous neighbors were less nice.

Mr Berry is the nicest neighbor I have.

Mr Lewis isn’t as nice as Mr Berry.

‘Challenging’

Her new job is more challenging than her last job.

Her last job was less challenging.

It’s the most challenging job she’s ever had.

Her last job wasn’t as challenging as this one.

Learning how to use comparatives and superlatives will make a big difference to your level of
conversation. In the courses at Wall Street English you learn these forms of English
grammar through listening and speaking and in both personal and business contexts. Now that
you’ve read about how they work, try this fun quiz to practice.
Expressions of quantity tell us how many or how much of something there is.

Compare these two sentences:

We get a little rain in spring.

Many people live in London.

We use a little with non-countable nouns like rain, snow, pollution etc. We cannot use a
little with countable nouns.

We use many with countable nouns like people, cars, chairs etc. We cannot use many with
countable nouns.

Today we look at some expressions of quantity that are used with both countable and non-
countable nouns.

This list starts with the least amount and ends with the most.

Countable and Non-coutable Expressions of

Quantity
Not any Lots of
Countable: There are not any biscuits Countable: Lots of women work here.
left. Non-countable: She made us lots of
Non-countable: There is not any water in coffee.
the sink.
Plenty of
No Countable: There are plenty of bottles in
Countable: There are no animals in the the fridge.
park. Non-countable: There is plenty of
Non-countable: There is no money in my information in report.
purse.
Most
Some Countable: She keeps most of her books
Countable: Some children play here on in the shelf.
the weekend. Non-countable: We spent the most time
Non-countable: There is some smoke on the project.
coming from that house.
All
A lot of Countable: Who ate all the apples?
Countable: She has a lot of dogs. Non-countable: Jennifer is the one with
Non-countable: There’s a lot of traffic all the experience.
today.
Phrasal verbs are two or more words that together act as a completely new verb with a
meaning separate from those of the original words. For example, pick up means to grab or lift,
very different from the definitions of pick and up alone.

Popular in spoken English, phrasal verbs can be quite confusing because their definitions aren’t
always easy to guess—and there are thousands of them. In fact, many of the base verbs used
to form phrasal verbs are used in multiple different phrasal verbs with distinct meanings, which
can add to the confusion.

For multilingual speakers, in particular, phrasal verbs are one of the most difficult topics
in learning English. To help simplify this complicated subject, what follows is our guide to
understanding English phrasal verbs, including a list of the most common ones.

What is a phrasal verb?

A phrasal verb combines a normal verb with an adverb or a preposition, referred to as
the particle of the phrasal verb, to create an entirely new verbal phrase—the phrasal verb. The
meaning of a phrasal verb is usually unrelated to the meanings of the words that compose it,
so think of a phrasal verb as an entirely new and independent word.

When used in a sentence, phrasal verbs act the same as other verbs for conjugation and
placement purposes, although they do have special grammatical rules regarding word order,
which we talk about below. Phrasal verbs can be conjugated into every type of verb form, so
you can use them anywhere you could use a normal verb.

Let’s look at the phrasal verb get over as an example. The verb get alone means to acquire, and
the preposition over alone usually refers to being higher than or going above something.
However, put them together and the phrasal verb get over means to recover from or overcome
something, a completely new definition that’s separate from the definitions of get and over.

You can use get over just like a normal verb, in any form or tense. Here are some quick
examples:

Simple past tense:

I had the flu last week but got over it.

Infinitive:

He wrote a song to get over his grandmother’s death.

Gerund:

Getting over prejudice at work is never easy.

Past participle:

Having finally gotten over the breakup, they were ready to return their partner’s things.

How to conjugate phrasal verbs

When a phrasal verb is used as the main verb of a sentence, you conjugate the verb part and
leave the other word or words as they are. Simply use whatever form of the verb you would
use if it were alone.

I get up at noon during the summer.

However, this morning I got up at sunrise.

I have gotten up early too many times this month.

Notice how only the word get changes, while the word up remains the same. Also notice
how get, an irregular verb, uses its irregular forms to fit whichever tense it needs.

In this way, you can use phrasal verbs in all the verb tenses so that you’re able to communicate
anything you want. Conjugation is also important for maintaining verb tense consistency if
you’re using phrasal verbs in a list with other verbs.

Types of phrasal verbs

To better understand phrasal verbs, it helps to organize them into two kinds of pairs: transitive
and intransitive; separable and inseparable. A phrasal verb can belong to only one type within
each pair (and all separable phrasal verbs are transitive).

Transitive phrasal verbs

Transitive phrasal verbs use a direct object, just like normal transitive verbs.

Charlie couldn’t put up with the meowing cats any longer.

Intransitive phrasal verbs

Intransitive phrasal verbs do not use an object.

The regional director was late, so the sales team went ahead without her.

Separable phrasal verbs

With transitive phrasal verbs, you can sometimes put the direct object between the verb and
the particle, as in “pick you up,” for example. There are, however, a few rules to follow with
separable phrasal verbs, so pay attention to our next section, about word order.

He forgot to shut the lights off before he left.

Inseparable phrasal verbs

Inseparable phrasal verbs cannot be split up; the verb and the particle must staytogether. All
intransitive phrasal verbs are inseparable.

The wayward son carried on without his father.

Some transitive phrasal verbs are also inseparable.

They went over the contract meticulously before signing it.

Word order with phrasal verbs

Most of the time, the words in a phrasal verb stay together. For intransitive and inseparable
transitive phrasal verbs, the verb and the particle must go next to each other and should never
be split up.

Separable phrasal verbs follow different rules, however. For starters, separable phrasal verbs
are always transitive, so they always have a direct object. You can put the direct object in the
middle of separable phrasal verbs, between the verb and the particle:
Augustus never let Hazel down.

This remains true when the direct object is a noun phrase; you can put all the words of the
noun phrase between the verb and the particle of a separable phrasal verb:

You never let any of your friends down.

With some separable phrasal verbs, putting the direct object between the verb and the particle
is not just an option, it’s required. For example, let’s look at the phrasal verb get down.

The beginning of the movie Up gets down everyone.

The beginning of the movie Up gets everyone down.

With other separable phrasal verbs, it doesn’t matter whether the direct object comes in the
middle or at the end. Both options are acceptable. Unfortunately, there’s no method for
determining which phrasal verbs are separable and which are not; you just have to memorize
them and practice until they come naturally. Both of the following examples using the
separable phrasal verb pick up are correct:

Pick the box up and carry it to the kitchen.

Pick up the box and carry it to the kitchen.

However, pronouns do follow a special rule when it comes to separable phrasal verbs: If the
object is a pronoun, it must always be placed in the middle of a separable phrasal
verb. Pronoun direct objects cannot after the phrasal verb.

Pick up it and carry it to the kitchen.

Pick it up and carry it to the kitchen.

Remember that not all transitive phrasal verbs are separable. Transitive phrasal verbs can be
either separable or inseparable, so be careful of where you put your object. For example, the
transitive phrasal verbs get through, come between, and go against are all inseparable, so the
direct object comes after them every time.

Nothing comes us between.

Nothing comes between us.