Comparative and superlative adjectives

 

 

The basics

 

Superiority

 

SHORT ADJECTIVES

Look at the following examples:

1. Some countries are greener than others

2. Some renewable energies are cheaper than fossil fuels

3. Plastic consumption is higher than ever before.

 

GREEN, CHEAP and HIGH are short adjectives with 1 syllable.

In the comparative form, you add – er + than.

 

LONG ADJECTIVES

 

5. Growing crops becomes more difficult than in the past.

DIFFICULT is a long adjective. With 2 or more syllables. You add more + adjective + than.

6. Today, air pollution is getting worse than it was just 20 years ago.

WORSE is the adjective BAD in its comparative form.

Exceptions

Like in French, some adjectives are irregular in their comparative form

 

Inferiority

 

7. People can seize an opportunity to be less wasteful.

8. The benefits of all this are less clear.

You will use less + adjective + than  for short and long adjectives. Less is the opposite of more.

 

 

Equality

 

Look at these examples:

 

1.We need to keep the end product as pure as possible

2. There has never been a period when temperature changes have been as fast and extensive as in recent decades.

3. Some of the earliest uses of plastic date as far back as 3500 years ago

 

Structure = as + adjective + as

 

More complex structures using comparatives

 

·       Modulating comparisons

 

Look at the following examples:

1.Some materials have a much higher carbon footprint than plastic.

2.Our knowledge is growing even faster. 

3. The electricity would be from far more expensive forms.

4. With ever stronger research since then, the scientific consensus is likely to have risen.

5. US power stations are switching to much cheaper shale gas

6. It has become a lot harder to make money from plastic recycling.

You can modulate the comparison by using:  Much – a lot – far – a bit – a little – slightly …

 

·      More and more…

 

Look at the following examples:

1.The regulations are getting stricter and stricter.

2.Our understanding of the situation is better and better.

3.Citizens are more and more conscious of the situation.

4.We would love to see more and more innovations

 

We repeat comparatives like this (… and ….) to say that something is changing continuously.

 

·      The more, the more…

 

Look at the following examples:

 

1. The more cars you make, the more money you make, the more resources you consume, the more profitable you are.

2. The more heat they trap, the warmer our planet gets.

3. The more we wait, the worse it gets.

4. The less we act, the harder it becomes.

 

We use the… the… (with two comparatives) to say that one thing depends on another thing.

Note that when we have the verb be in this structure, we can omit it:

 

The more greenhouse gases (there are) in the atmosphere, the more heat gets trapped.

 

Other common expressions:

The bigger the better.

The sooner the better.

The more the merrier.


Modifié le: mercredi 20 septembre 2023, 10:54