Comparative adjectives

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When we want to compare two things in English, we use comparative adjectives. 

Take a look at the following text about lions in Africa to see how comparative adjectives are used:

Lions in Africa have a very strange dynamic compared to other wild animals. Male lions are bigger than the females so they are able to overpower them, making them inferior. The lioness also has a more difficult job than the male lion as she has to hunt, while the male relaxes in the sun. However, because male lions are stronger than  lionesses, when there is trouble the males always come to the rescue. Lions do not seem to be more aggressive than other animals in the wild despite their bad reputation. 

They are very social animals and travel together in groups known as “prides”. Apart from not being very aggressive, they are extremely affectionate with each other. Grooming is a big part of the pride dynamic and looking better than other lions is extremely important for a lion. 

Lions are very interesting, incredible creatures, and we need to try our best to conserve their habitat by being less destructive, so that future generations are able to appreciate them as much as we do.

Now let’s take a look at some rules on how to form comparative adjectives. 

Remember to use the conjunction “than” when comparing two or more things or people. For example,

He is taller than me.

Their house is smaller than ours.

The key to forming comparative adjectives is counting the syllables in the adjective. 

For one-syllable adjectives we add “-er” to the adjective to make it a comparative. For example,

strong-stronger

Use more / less + adjective for two or more syllable adjectives. Here are some examples from the text above:

more difficult

more aggressive 

less destructive

Here is a useful rule: if the adjective ends in a consonant-vowel-consonant combination (CVC), double the final consonant before adding “-er”, for example:

big-bigger

fat-fatter

hot-hotter

Also, remember that if an adjective ends in “-y”, its comparative form ends in “-ier”, for example:

dirty-dirtier

happy-happier

ugly-uglier

Finally, some adjectives don’t follow the above rules and need to be memorized, for example,

good-better

bad-worse

far-farther/further

We hope this has been helpful for you! For more English: Aulaglobal, tu centro de idiomas en Lorca.

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