English Grammar: Comparative Adjectives

Comparative adjectives are words that are used to show the differences between two nouns: “larger”, “smaller”, “longer”, etc. Some comparative adjectives have unexpected spellings, but there are some simple rules to follow to get the spellings right. In this lesson, I will use strange objects from my personal collection to teach you about comparative adjectives. For example, is my first sword “biger”, “bigger”, or “more big” than my second sword? I will teach you when to use “er” and when to use “more” to express comparisons between adjectives. You will also learn how the spelling changes on some words when we add the “er” ending. After watching this video, take the quiz at for more practice. TRANSCRIPT Hello. My name is Emma, and in today’s video, I am going to teach you about comparative adjectives. So, what are comparative adjectives? They are words we use when we are comparing different things or different people. Okay? So, let’s look a little bit more into this. I just wanted to remind you about what a noun is and an adjective is before we begin. A noun is a person, a place, or a thing. So, for example, this marker is a noun because it’s a thing. I’m a person, my name is Emma - I’m also a noun. Okay? Right now we are in a classroom - a classroom is a place, so “classroom“ is a noun. So, a noun is a person, a place, or a thing. An adjective is something... Or I should say it’s a word that describes a noun. Okay? So, I said before this is a marker. If I called it a blue marker, “blue“ would be the adjective. Or if I said: “This is a colourful marker“ or “a dull marker“, these are all adjectives to describe the noun “marker“. Okay. So, here are some other examples of adjectives. We can use the word “cold“, okay? Right now I’m cold. We can use the word “hot“; that’s an adjective. “Tall“, “old“, “rich“, “poor“. We use these words to describe something. Okay? So, a lot of the times we like to compare things. Okay? We like to compare people. Okay? Which celebrity is hotter? Okay? Which...? Which dress is nicer? In English, we often compare two things; and when we compare things, we need to use comparative adjectives. So, let’s look at that. So, we have some rules when it comes to using adjectives to compare two things. When an adjective, so such as these, are one syllable or one beat, we add “er“ to it when we want to use it to compare. So, let’s look at an example of this-okay?-because it’s sort of hard to understand unless you actually see what I’m talking about. I have here two cups. Okay? I want to compare these two cups. This cup is old, this cup is new, so when I compare these two cups, I add the word “er“ to the adjective when I compare them. So, I can say: “This cup is older than this cup. This cup is newer than this cup.“ Okay? So, let’s look at this. What did I do? I added “er“ to the word “old“, and I added “er“ to the word “new“. So, when I’m comparing two things, if the adjective... In this case, the adjective is “old“ and “new“. If the adjective is one syllable or one beat, meaning it’s a short adjective, we add “er“. Let’s look at another example. This book is very heavy. So, I have here this book: The Unabridged Edgar Allan Poe. It’s a very nice book, but it’s very heavy. And then I have this book: The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly. It’s a book written by a South Korean author that’s really good, but it’s... It’s very light. Okay? So, I want to compare these two books. What can I say about these two books? How are they different? Well, this book is very long. This book is longer than this book. Okay? This book is longer than this book. So, notice we have the word “long“; this is long; that describes the book. And we add “er“-“er“-to compare it to this book. Now, maybe I want to talk about this book. I can say: “This book is shorter than this book.“ And, again, all I need to do is add “er“ to the adjective. Sorry. So, this book is longer; this book is shorter. Let’s look at another example. I have a lot of things today to show you. Best part of all: The swords. Okay? These are swords. I don’t know if you can see that, but this is a little sword. It looks like something you could put in a sandwich, maybe. This is a much bigger sword. So, how can we compare these two? Well, again, there’s many things we can say about these two swords; there’s many adjectives we can use to describe them. Let’s look at the one we have on the board. Let’s do... Well, this isn’t really thicker. We can say “longer“ and “shorter“ with this. We can also say: “lighter“ and “heavier“. This sword is a heavier sword. Okay? It’s a lot bigger. It’s bigger and it’s heavier. This sword is smaller. Okay? Notice it’s smaller and it’s lighter. So, what I did there was I just added “er“ or the sound “er“ to “heavy“ to make it “heavier“, and I added “er“ to small to make it “smaller“. Okay? So let’s do some more practice […]