Degree of Comparison-1

Presented by:
Pratiwi Lestari, M.Pd

&
Siti Nuraziza Tuzzuhro, M.Pd
 Comparative adjectives are adjectives that
compare differences between the attributes
of two nouns.
 These are often measurements, such as

height, weight, depth, distance, etc., but
they don’t have to be.
 We can also use comparative adjectives to

compare non-physical characteristics.
Adjective Comparative
tall Taller
fast Faster
sweet sweeter
beautiful more/less beautiful
intelligent more/less intelligent

 “Short” adjectives are adjectives that have
only one syllable, or else have two syllables
and end in “-y.”
 The rules:
Syllables Rule Examples
Add “-er” to the end of the

One syllable Tall becomes Taller
adjective.
Add “-er” to the end of the

One syllable Tall becomes Taller
adjective.
Two syllables ending in “-y” Replace “-y” with “-ier” happy becomes happier
Two syllables ending in “-y” Replace “-y” with “-ier” happy becomes happier
=> First, if the adjective ends in “-e,” we just
add “-r,” not “-er.” This is to avoid doubling
the letter “e.” For example:
 Large becomes larger, not largeer.
 Cute becomes cuter, not cuteer.
 Safe becomes safer, not safeer.
=> Second, if the last three letters of the
adjective are in the pattern consonant,
vowel, consonant, we double the final
consonant before adding “-er” to the word.
For example:
 Big becomes bigger, not biger.
 Sad becomes sadder, not sader.
 Thin becomes thinner, not thiner.
 “Long” adjectives are adjectives that have
three or more syllables, or adjectives that
have two syllables and do not end in “-y.”
Insert the word more/less before Careful becomes more/less

Two syllables not ending in “-y”
the adjective. careful.
Insert the word more/less before Intelligent becomes more/less

Three or more syllables
the adjective. intelligent.
 Irregular adjectives
Adjective Comparative form
fun more/less fun
bad worse
good better
well (not ill) better

Adjective Comparative Form 1 Comparative Form 2
clever cleverer more/less clever
likely likelier more/less likely
narrow narrower more narrow
quiet quieter more/less quiet
simple simpler more/less simple
far* farther further

 Explicitly mentioning both nouns
Noun 1 + be + comparative adjective + than + noun 2
For example:
 “An airplane is bigger than a car.”
 “Mt. Everest is taller than Mt. Fuji.”
 “Tom is faster than John.”
 Omitting one or both nouns
Speaker A: “I don’t think you should be running. Swimming is easier on the

knees than running.”
Speaker B: “Yes, but running is better for my heart than swimming.”
Speaker A: “I don’t think you should be running. Swimming is easier on

the knees.
Speaker B: “Yes, but running is better for my heart.”
 Note that when we omit a noun, we also

omit the word than.
GRADABLE AND UNGRADABLE ADJECTIVES
 Gradable adjectives are adjectives that can move up and

down on a scale of intensity.
 For example, tall is a gradable adjective because
something can be a little tall, tall, or very tall.
a bit, a little, much, a lot, and far
 “Jane is much taller than Emily.”
 “Giraffes have far longer necks than elephants.”
 “Is your dad a little bigger than you?”
Ungradable adjectives are adjectives that can’t move

up and down on a scale of intensity.
 For example, you cannot say “I am very married.” You

are either married, or you aren’t. The same can be said
for the adjective dead: something is either dead or it
isn’t.

Expressing Equality and Inequality using as … as
There is another way to express similarities and

differences between two nouns using adjectives that aren’t
comparative. To describe two things as equal, we can use
the construction as + adjective + as. For example:
 “The apple is as big as the orange.” (The two are the
same size.)
 “The table is as heavy as the desk.” (The two are the
same weight.)
 “Jane is as talkative as Mary.” (They both like to talk the
same amount.)
We can use the same construction to say that two
things are unequal. We just have to add the word not:
 “The apple is not as big as the orange.” (The orange is
bigger.)
 “The table is not as heavy as the desk.” (The desk is
heavier.)
 “Jane is not as talkative as Mary.” (Mary is more
talkative.)
 adjectives that describe the attribute of a
person or thing that is the highest (or lowest) in
degree compared to the members of the noun’s
group.
 Superlative adjectives are similar to
comparative adjective, except they express the
most extreme degree of comparison, and they
are only used when talking about groups of
three or more people or things.
 We form superlative adjectives either by adding
“-est” to the end of the adjective, or by adding
the word most before the adjective.
=> With one-syllable adjectives, we add “-est” and
double the final consonant if preceded by one
vowel. For example:
 big – biggest
thin – thinnest
 slim – slimmest
=> The final consonant is not doubled if it is
preceded by two vowels or another consonant, as
in:
 weak – weakest
strong – strongest
 large – largest
small – smallest
 (If the adjective ends in an “e,” then you
only need to add “-st,” as in the case of
large – largest.)
 If an adjective has two syllables and ends in
“-y,” we replace “y” with “i” and add “-est,”
as in:
 happy – happiest
chewy – chewiest
 sticky – stickiest
furry – furriest
 “Long” adjectives are adjectives that have
three or more syllables, or adjectives that
have two syllables and do not end in “-y.”
For example:
 careful – most/least careful
caring – most/least caring
 gifted – most/least gifted
intelligent – most/least intelligent
 beautiful – most/least beautiful
amazing – most/least amazing
=> We usually use superlative adjectives when
comparing the attributes of someone or something to
others, either in a collective group or among several
individuals.
 When we use a superlative adjective in a sentence,
we almost always precede it with the word the.
For example:
 “John is the tallest student in his class.”
 “Daniel always buys the most advanced smartphones
available.”
 “Mrs. Phillips is the nicest teacher among the staff.”
 “It is the highest mountain in the world.”
 “There are many expensive brands of watches, but
these are the most expensive kind.”
 “This is the best book I’ve ever read.”
 “Among her four sisters, Georgina has the worst
eyesight.”
 Omitting the group of comparison
 When we use superlatives, it is very common
to omit the group that something or someone
is being compared to because that group is
often implied by a previous sentence, and to
repeat the group would sound very
repetitive.
 For example:
 “My brothers are all fast swimmers. John is
the fastest, though.”
 In informal speech or writing, it is quite
common for the word the to be left out
when the group of comparison is omitted, as
in:
 “We all were carrying big, heavy sticks with
us. Mine was biggest, though.”
Expressing the lowest degree
 As we’ve seen, “long” adjectives can either take
most or least to indicate the highest and lowest
degrees of comparison.
For example:
“Though it was the least intelligent movie that
I’ve seen this year, it was the most exciting one
I’d been to in a long time.”
 “Short” adjectives, on the other hand, have only

one superlative form that expresses the highest
degree of its characteristic. For two-syllable
adjectives ending in “-y,” we can generally just
use the word least with the base form of the
adjective.
For example:
 “He’s the least tidy child I’ve ever met.”
 “The baby’s least grumpy when he’s had enough
naps.”
 We can also technically use the least with a
single-syllable adjective in its normal form to
express the lowest degree, but this is often
awkward to read or say.
For example:
 “John is the tallest student in his class, but
he is the least tall on the baseball team.”
 When we want to express the lowest quality
of a single-syllable adjective, it is better just
to use the opposite superlative adjective, as
in:
 “John is the tallest in his class, but he is the
shortest on the baseball team.”
 Adjectives describe a quality or
characteristic of a noun or pronoun. The
basic form of an adjective is sometimes
known as the positive degree.
 But adjectives can also be inflected (changed
in form) to compare a quality between two
nouns—this form is known as the
comparative degree.
 Similarly, we can also inflect an adjective to
identify a noun with the highest (or lowest)
degree of an attribute among a group—this is
known as the superlative degree.
 An English adjective has three forms – positive, comparative
and superlative. Complete the following sentences using the
appropriate form of the adjective.
1. She is ………………… than her sister.
A. pretty
B. prettier
C. prettiest
2. Martha is a ………………….. girl.

A. nice
B. nicer
C. nicest
3. Supriya is the …………………… girl in the class.

A. intelligent
B. more intelligent
C. most intelligent
4. Martin speaks English …………………..
A. well
B. better
C. best
5. Russia is the …………………. country in the world.

A. big
B. bigger
C. biggest
6. China is a ……………….. country.

A. big
B. bigger
C. biggest
7. China is ………………… than India.

A. big
B. bigger
C. biggest
8. This is the ………………… book I have ever read.
A. interesting
B. more interesting
C. most interesting
9. I am …………………. than you.

A. smart
B. smarter
C. smartest
10. Take the ………………….. of the two routes.

A. short
B. shorter
C. shortest
 Complete the following sentences.
1. The boy is ……………………. than James. (tall /
taller / tallest)
2. Milk is ………………….. than any other food.
(nourishing / more nourishing / most
nourishing)
3. Radium is one of the ……………………… metals.
(valuable / more valuable / most valuable)
4. Few English poets were as ……………………. as
Wordsworth. (great / greater / greatest)
5. Shimla is ………………….. than most other hill
stations in India. (famous / more famous /
most famous)
6. Gold is one of the ……………………. metals.
(precious / more precious / most precious)
7. Solomon was …………………… than any other
king. (wise / wiser / wisest)
8. Few historians write as ………………….. as
Macaulay. (well / better /best)
9. Very few books are as ……………………. as
David Copperfield. (popular / more popular
/ most popular)
10. A train is …………………. than a car. (fast /
faster / fastest)
 Azar, B. S. 2002. Understanding and using
English grammar, 3rd ed. with answer keys.
Person Longman
 Murphy, R. 1989. English grammar in use:

Reference and practice for intermediate
students of English. Cambridge University
Press

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Presented by:

Pratiwi Lestari, M.Pd

 These are often measurements, such as

 We can also use comparative adjectives to

beautiful more/less beautiful

intelligent more/less intelligent

Add “-er” to the end of the

Syllables Rule Examples

Add “-er” to the end of the

Syllables Rule Examples

Insert the word more/less before Careful becomes more/less

Insert the word more/less before Intelligent becomes more/less

Adjective Comparative form

fun more/less fun

well (not ill) better

clever cleverer more/less clever

likely likelier more/less likely

narrow narrower more narrow

quiet quieter more/less quiet

simple simpler more/less simple

far* farther further

Noun 1 + be + comparative adjective + than + noun 2

Speaker A: “I don’t think you should be running. Swimming is easier on the

Speaker A: “I don’t think you should be running. Swimming is easier on

 Note that when we omit a noun, we also

 Gradable adjectives are adjectives that can move up and

Ungradable adjectives are adjectives that can’t move

 For example, you cannot say “I am very married.” You

There is another way to express similarities and

 “Short” adjectives, on the other hand, have only

2. Martha is a ………………….. girl.

3. Supriya is the …………………… girl in the class.

5. Russia is the …………………. country in the world.

6. China is a ……………….. country.

7. China is ………………… than India.

9. I am …………………. than you.

10. Take the ………………….. of the two routes.

 Murphy, R. 1989. English grammar in use:

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