Language/French/Grammar/Comparative-forms-of-adjectives

Comparative forms of adjectives

In English, adjectives can be used to compare one entity with another by adding -er, or putting 'more' or 'less' in front: 'bigger', 'lighter', 'more dangerous', 'less interesting'. In French, the comparative forms of adjectives are created by putting plus 'more' or moins 'less' in front of them. The adjective stays in the position it would normally occupy, before or after the noun, and agrees with the noun as usual:

• Il désire avoir une plus grande voiture

He wants to have a bigger car

• Je n'ai jamais fait de traversée plus dangereuse

I have never made a more dangerous crossing

• Ce film est moins intéressant pour les enfants

This film is less interesting for children

• Elle semble moins malade aujourd'hui

She seems less ill today

plus and moins make unequal comparisons between entities. A related construction is aussi 'as' (which often changes to si after a negation), which makes a comparison of equality between entities:

• II désire avoir une aussi grande voiture

He wants to have as big a car

• Le courant n'est pas si dangereux par ici

The current isn't as dangerous here

NB: Adding aussi to a preceding adjective does not alter its position. This contrasts with English. Compare: une aussi grande voiture with 'as big a car'. In clauses dependent on nouns modified by comparative adjectives with plus and moins, writers often insert ne, le or ne le in formal written French:

• Ces virages sont plus dangereux qu'on (ne) (le) pense

These bends are more dangerous than one thinks

• Le film est moins intéressant qu'on (ne) (l')espérait

The film is less interesting than we hoped

In clauses dependent on nouns modified by comparative adjectives with aussi, only le may be inserted in formal written French:

• La charge de travail est aussi lourde que je le croyais

The workload is as demanding as I thought

There are two irregular comparative forms of adjectives which are used productively in French:

• meilleur/-e

better (comparative of bon 'good')

• pire

worse (comparative of mauvais 'bad')

meilleur is used everywhere that bon could be, and agrees with the noun it modifies:

• Il désire avoir une meilleure place

He wants to have a better sea t

• Ces marchandises sont meilleures

These mods are better

• Le texte est meilleur maintenant que tu l'as raccourci

The text is better now you have shortened it

plus bon 'more good' is only possible where English can use 'more good', but, again as in English, the form is rather unusual:

• Il est plus bon qu'intelligent

He is more good than intelligent

pire and plus mauvais both exist, plus mauvais is the most commonly used form, but pire will be used where the comparison is between two things which are already both bad:

• Le remède est pire que le mal

The cure is worse than the illness

or to refer to abstract nouns:

• La vérité est pénible, mais le mensonge est pire

Truth hurts, but lying is worse

Consider exploring these related pages after completing this lesson: Possessive determiners, Omission of the article, Recognizing when an unstressed pronoun is a direct object & Place adverbs.

Other Lessons

• Impersonal Verbs
• Future Tense
• tard versus en retard
• Indefinite article
• « d'autres » VS « des autres »
• Intransitive verbs and auxiliary “être”
• Common Mistakes
• Agreement of the past participle following “être” with the subject of a passive
• Difference between Nombre, Chiffre and Numéro
• Use of indefinite and partitive articles after the negative forms
• Position of object pronouns with faire, laisser, envoyer or verbs of perception + infinitive
• Masculine and feminine forms of adjectives — A change from a nasal vowel to an oral vowel
• Location of adverbs modifying sentences
• Direct Object Pronoun
• Confusions English and French direct object