Problems Students Face When Learning Comparatives in English Grammar

People use adjectives to define, specify or modify a noun that stands for a person, thing, group of people, object, or a group of objects in sentences or phrases. In order to compare the difference between two nouns, people use comparative adjectives. It is fairly easy to learn to use these adjectives in grammatically correct sentences. There are a few exceptions that students may have trouble with.
  1. The use of "-er" "more" and "than"

    • Most comparatives will be preceded by the word "more" or will take -r or -er as a suffix. If the adjective is a short word like "rich", it will take a suffix, as in "richer." If the adjective is a long word like "beautiful", it will be preceded by "more" as in "more beautiful." Most comparative adjectives will be followed by the word "than" followed by the thing compared, such as A is more beautiful than B. The word "more" and the suffix -er should not be used together to define the same noun; it would be wrong to say A is more richer than B.

    The use of -ier

    • When the adjective is a two-syllable word that ends with the letter y, such as"happy," the y is dropped and the adjective takes the suffix -ier, as in "happier."

    Irregular Comparatives

    • There are a few adjectives that take a different form in the comparative degree.

      These are:

      Good-better; bad-worse; little-less; some-much-many more.

    Incomparable adjectives

    • Some adjectives express a superlative. That means there cannot be two of the thing they define. It would not make sense to use these adjectives in the comparative degree. This list includes adjectives such as unique, complete, absolute, impossible.

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