A lot of people are studying English, because it has almost officially become a world language. Everyone knows this foreign language to one degree or another: someone can say hello, and someone is fluent on absolutely any topic. Everyone who studies English sooner or later comes across adjectives. In this article, we will analyze their comparative and superlative degrees. What are the exceptions? What is good's superlative?
Comparative and superlative adjectives
When we describe something, we use adjectives to color our speech, to make it more emotional. In such situations, there is often a need to compare items or highlight the best one.
Thus, to make a comparative degree, you need to add the prefix -er to the adjective, and for the superlative -est, for example:
- clever – smart
- cleverer - smarter
- the cleverest - the smartest, smartest (the is required)
For adjectives in which three syllables (or more), prefixes are not added, and more/less is written before them for the comparative degree, for the superlative - the most:
- beautiful in English means beautiful
- more and less beautiful - more and less beautiful
- superlative degree – the most beautiful – beautiful
You can practice a little.
Exceptions
As with any English rule, there are exceptions. There is no pattern here, you just need to learn words (and there are not many of them), which have different degrees.
Exceptions include the following adjectives: bad, good, much/many, little, old, far. The first two will be discussed in the next paragraph, since the superlatives good and bad are the most complex and difficult to remember.
Far and old each have two options. Is there a difference? Which option to use in which situation?
Farther and the farthest are used to indicate the real distance, for example: The first road is farther than the second (The first road is longer than the second).
Further translates as further (further understanding - further understanding).
Older is used for objects and people. We can use this to compare the age of non-relatives (Mary is older than Mike - Mary is older than Mike. His car is older than yours - His car is older than yours).
Elder is used only for people with close relatives (brother and sister, father and mother). With elder, than is not used. For example, my brother elder my sister (my brother is older than my sister).
Comparative and superlative good & bad
As said, good and bad are the most difficult to remember, since their degrees do not match the base.
Good has a comparative - better, and the best - a superlative degree. In degrees, there is not a single letter from the word good.
Bad is about the same. Comparative degree - worse, the worst - excellent.
Examples: It is better to buy black shoes.
My mom is the best storyteller.
This book is worse than that.
The film is the worst I have ever seen (Thisthe worst movie I have ever seen).
So, good has better (better) and (best) the best comparative and superlative degrees. And bad - worse (worse) and the worst (worst).
Conclusion
So, we have figured out how to form degrees for different evaluative words, exceptions, as well as comparative and superlative degrees of good (good) and bad (bad).
For short evaluative words, use the endings er for the comparative and est for the superlative (don't forget to put the before the second case). For long adjectives of three syllables or more, use the words before the word more / less (more / less) and the most (most). Exceptions like much/many, old, far little just need to be remembered, there aren't many of them.
Better - comparative degree of good, superlative - best (and the best would be more correct). As you remember, bad: worse is comparative, worst (the worst) is excellent.
Don't be afraid to learn English, look for information in books and the Internet to better understand the rules.
