Comparatives. In this lesson, you will learn how to use adjectives to compare two things. Paul and his brother Ian are different. Paul is older than Ian. His beard is longer and grayer than Ian's beard. Paul is happier than Ian. Ian is more serious. Look at the comparatives: older than, longer and grayer than, happier than, and more serious. Paul is older than Ian. Ian is more serious than Paul. In the first sentence, we add er to the adjective old to make the comparison. In the second sentence, we use more before the adjective serious. This is because we use er for short adjectives and more for longer adjectives. Look, old just has one syllable or beat, old, but serious has three. We use more for longer words. Let's take a closer look. Add er to the end of an adjective. Remember, an adjective is a word that describes, like tall, hot, and pretty. We add er to get taller, hotter, and prettier. You saw there are some spelling changes. For many adjectives we just add er. For some adjectives, we double the consonant and add er. For other adjectives, we drop the y and add ier. Let's take a closer look. For many adjectives we just add er. This turtle is slow, but this snail is slower. Cheap becomes cheaper, and young becomes younger. We double the consonant and add er for adjectives that end with consonant, vowel, consonant. You've seen this pattern before. Big, we have to double the consonant and add er. This box is bigger than that box. Hot, double the consonant, add er. This fire is hotter than that coffee. Thin, we double the n, add er. This pen is thinner than that pen. For other words, we drop the y and add ier. That's if the word ends with a consonant and a y. You have also seen this spelling pattern before. She is angry, but he is angrier. This is early, we drop the y, and it's earlier. She is friendly, but we drop the y, add ier, and she is friendlier. We use more for longer words. These adjectives, comfortable, difficult, expensive have three syllables or more, so we don't add an er. This woman is comfortable, but this woman is more comfortable. This looks difficult, but this looks more difficult. A car is expensive, but a house is more expensive. There are some irregulars. Good changes to better and bad changes to worse. I know these don't look like the original adjectives at all. You just have to remember them. Here's an example. Here's Jay. He was sick yesterday. Today he is better than he was yesterday. He's still sick, but yesterday he was worse. Use an adjective plus er and then the word than, T-H-A-N. Today is colder than yesterday. We have two nouns here that we're comparing; today and yesterday, and in-between, we use the adjective with er and the word than to make the comparison. Let's look at some more examples. Steven is taller than his sister. He is older than she is too. Smokey is bigger than Mick. Mick is older than Smokey. Notice, in all of these sentences, we have the same pattern. We have a verb, here in the first sentence that's is, and then we have the adjective with an er ending, bigger, and then we use the word than to make the comparison. You try. The adjective is green, we have the hills and the mountains, what goes in between to make the comparison? Remember, you need a verb, the adjective green with an er, and the word than. The hills are greener than the mountains. Here the adjective is dirty, and we have the shoes, and the boots. Remember, dirty ends with a consonant and a y. What goes here? The shoes are dirtier than the boots. Now the adjective is thin and we are comparing pizza, this pizza and this pizza. What goes here? This pizza is thinner than this pizza. Did you remember to double the n? Pretty. These flowers and those flowers. These flowers are prettier than those flowers. Last one, interesting. We have two students in class, Lia's class and Ann's class. What goes here? Lia's class is more interesting than Ann's class. More because interesting is a long word. Now you know how to compare things with adjectives. You can say Paul is older than Ian by adding an er on old, and you can say that Ian is more serious than Paul by using that word more.
