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Do you find comparative adjectives easy?
Do you know how to strengthen and weaken your comparisons?
Stay tuned for a test on this towards the end of the video, but afterwards I'm sure you'll find comparisons way easier.
Welcome to Coffee Break English.
My name is Mark. And I'm Nick.
How are you today, Nick?
I'm really good, thank you.
Yeah, I'm really excited about this episode and about this new season, yeah.
A brand new season of Coffee Break English.
Now, we're delighted that Nick is joining us for this season and that we're looking forward to lots of episodes.
Yeah, absolutely. I can't wait to get started.
So, what are we talking about today, Nick?
Today, we're talking about comparative adjectives And in particular, how to make your comparisons stronger and weaker.
Okay, can you give us an example of a comparative adjective?
Yeah, absolutely. So let's start with a simple one.
So a one syllable adjective.
So clean. Okay. So clean is the adjective.
The comparative form is cleaner than.
Yeah, exactly, absolutely.
Another example is big.
Okay. And that would be bigger than.
We get two Gs there don't we?
Exactly. And the reason why is because there's one vowel before the G and there's only one G in big.
Yeah. So we add an extra G and it's a pronunciation thing because we might see bigger with just one G as bigger which sounds very funny.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so clean, cleaner than.
Big, bigger than. Exactly, and next one, long, Mark.
So that would be longer than.
I'm sure you're getting this.
So, and of course here, a great comparison is my beard is longer than Mark's beard, for now.
I'm growing a beard and yeah, Nick's is longer than mine.
Maybe next time my beard will be longer than yours.
We'll see, we'll see.
You'll have to watch the next episode to find out.
So those are one -syllable adjectives.
Do we get adjectives with more than one syllable?
Yeah, absolutely, of course.
So the next step would be two -syllable adjectives, but there's a specific group of two -syllable adjectives we need to be careful with.
And that is one's ending in Y.
In Y, the letter Y.
So give us an example.
Happy. So happy becomes happier than...
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Like I'm happier than I was an hour ago because I'm filming with you, Mark.
Likewise. So but the spelling changes here again, doesn't it?
Absolutely does. So here, instead of happy with a y, we're getting happier, which we change the y for an I -E -R.
So happier. H -A -P -P -I -E -R.
Fantastic. Happier than.
Let's try one more.
Yep, funny! Okay, so you do this one.
Funny becomes? Funnier than.
Funnier than, okay.
And again, we take off the y and we add I -E -R.
Funnier than. Exactly.
Excellent, okay. What about adjectives, the other adjectives then?
Yeah, so the rest of the adjectives that we're making comparative, fall into a category where we use the word more.
Okay. So that's any adjective that has two syllables or more, but doesn't end in Y?
So our one syllable adjectives and our two syllable adjectives that end in Y, they become our, so happier, longer, and so on, but two syllable adjectives that don't end in Y and all other adjectives of three, four, five syllables, they use more.
Yes, with some exceptions, but we'll look at the exceptions after.
Let's take some examples first. Exactly.
So, and a good example is expensive.
Expensive? That's when something costs a lot of money?
Yeah, absolutely. So, more, expensive, than, and expensive has three syllables.
Expensive, okay. So, more.
Excellent. Another, comfortable.
Yeah. Comfortable. Okay, so comfortable.
There are four syllables there.
This chair is more comfortable than your chair.
Okay, well I don't know.
Next time I'll try that chair.
They're exactly the same.
But, fantastic. So that is the rule for most of those adjectives.
We've got one syllable, two syllable, and the rest. But there are some exceptions Mark.
Okay, what are the exceptions?
So well, let's start with good.
If we want to make good comparative, we can say, better, exactly.
So, better than. Or bad.
Worse than. Great, fun.
More fun than. Exactly.
And there's a reason for this.
It's because fun was originally a noun, not an adjective.
So, more fun than, not funner than.
Last one which changes if you're British or if you're American is far.
Far. Far. So, further, or further?
Exactly, so the traditionally American form is farther and the British form is further Further.
Okay. So that city is further than this city.
Exactly. Fantastic.
So that's all of the basic rules for the comparisons.
So let's move on to the next step, which is the modifiers.
Modifier. Before we get onto the modifiers, Like I do want to mention one thing that's about these mugs.
We have some lovely Coffee Break English mugs.
And if you would like your own Coffee Break English mug, you can get one.
There's a link in the description of this video for you to get your own mug, but now, modifiers.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, this mug is definitely more beautiful than the mug I have at home, that's for sure.
In fact, we could say it's much more beautiful than the mug I have at home.
Ah, so that's your modifier.
The word, much, changes how strong the comparison is.
Yes, exactly. And there are different words we can use to modify a comparison.
When we want to make it stronger, we can use much, way, and a lot.
Ah, so we could say, of this restaurant is way better than the one we went to last week.
Yeah, exactly. Now these three words, they mean the same thing.
Maybe there's a slight difference with way.
It's maybe more informal, but it can be stronger because we can go way like this.
But we'll look at intonation in a bit.
Okay, what about if we want to make the adjectives weaker?
Yeah, so there are some modifiers that can help us weaken the difference between the comparisons.
So in that sense, they are more similar.
Okay. So, they are a bit, a little, and slightly.
Okay, so let's repeat these.
We've got a bit, a little, and slightly.
Yeah, exactly. So an example of that is I have slightly more coffee in my mug than you do.
Or I could see that my beard is a little smaller than your beard. For now, yeah, absolutely.
Okay. So I mentioned earlier with weighing that we can make it even stronger by elongating it.
And this is something that we absolutely do when we make comparisons.
To make it sound more natural, we use intonation.
So I don't just say my dog is a lot bigger than my friend's dog.
I say, my dog is a lot bigger than my friend's dog.
Yeah, because we don't speak like robots.
We are human, therefore we use our intonation, we use our body even to express ourselves.
So I could say, for me, English is way easier than German.
Yes, also for me, absolutely.
And in fact, there are different ways for us to do that.
So one way is we make the word longer.
And another is we make it louder, and then we use our body.
But when we talk about making our comparison weaker, we do something a little different.
So for example, I could say, today is slightly warmer than yesterday.
So you went slightly warmer than yesterday, so you went up.
Exactly, so my voice went up and slightly did not last a long time, it was short.
So we're saying that this slightly, it's saying that it's not as important as comparative.
It's slightly warmer than yesterday or it's a bit warmer than yesterday.
Or a little warmer.
Great, so that's everything we need to know about comparative adjectives.
I think therefore, it's time for the test. Yep, absolutely.
So Nick, can you explain what's going to happen here?
Yeah, so I'll give you the adjective and two things, and I want you to compare the two things with the adjective, but try to use one of the modifiers.
Right, so just as a reminder, our modifiers, for the more ones, they are much, a lot and way.
Yep! And then for the less ones, they're slightly a bit and a little.
Exactly. Okay, number one then.
Okay, so the adjective is relaxing.
Relaxing. Beach holidays, mountain holidays.
Ooh, so we'll give you some time to think about this.
Feel free to pause the video or pause the audio podcast to have a think.
So Mark, for you...
I would say that beach holidays are much less relaxing than mountain holidays.
I love being in the mountains!
Okay, I think they're slightly more relaxing than mountain holidays, but I prefer mountain holidays.
So, next one? Okay, so the next one, the adjective you're looking at is FAST, and then the two situations, the two things that you're comparing are my new laptop and my old one.
Okay, so I'll give you a moment.
Okay. So Nick, what's the situation with your new and old laptop?
So, my new laptop is slightly faster than my old laptop.
Good, that's good to know.
Yeah, so next one, Mark.
So this one is an interesting one because it's about something I really enjoy, books and films, okay?
but the adjective is interesting.
So let's give you some time to think about this.
Books, films and interesting.
Make a sentence. Okay.
Nick, what's your sentence?
Well, for me, books are way more interesting than films. I agree.
Books are way, books are a lot more interesting for me than films. I love a book.
Me too. Okay, so that's the practice done.
How did you do? It's always great to practise, but you'll get way better at your English if you do further practice with our Coffee Break English Workbook.
So our workbooks are available.
You can download a digital one, but this is the printed copy, but the workbooks are available at coffeebreakenglish .com Okay, so that's all we have for this lesson, but our viewers do have something else they can do to practise with comparative adjectives.
They have the workbook and there is an episode on this and you can watch that video as well.
And you can find that here or in the description for this episode.
Now also make sure you go to coffeebreakenglish .com where you'll be able to find the blog article for this episode, with lots more examples and even an exercise that you can download.
So that's, as I said, at coffeebreakenglish .com.
Thank you for this episode, Nick.
Thank you, Mark, and thank you for watching.
We think you'll be way better at making comparisons now.
Until the next episode, happy coffee breaking!
See you soon! You have been listening to a Coffee Break Languages production for the Radio -Lingua Network.
Copyright 2025 Radio -Lingua Limited.
Recording copyright 2025 Radio -Lingua Limited.
All rights reserved.
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Why are you? That's why we're thrilled to partner with Aura.
Your personal data is a gold mine for hackers and Aura helps lock it down.
Aura monitors the dark web, blocks data brokers from selling your information, includes a VPN for private browsing, and a password manager to secure your accounts before criminals break in.
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