Comparatives & Superlatives
Comparatives & Superlatives
French builds comparisons by wrapping the adjective in plus/moins/aussi...que, rather than changing the adjective's ending the way English '-er/-est' does for short adjectives.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
plus / moins / aussi...que
Elle est plus grande que moi. (She is taller than me.)
She is taller than me.
French comparatives use plus...que ('more...than'), moins...que ('less...than'), and aussi...que ('as...as') wrapped around the unchanged adjective. English does this too for longer adjectives ('more interesting than'), but for short, common adjectives English instead changes the adjective's ending ('taller', 'bigger') — French never does this: every adjective, short or long, uses the plus/moins wrap, with no equivalent to the '-er' ending at all.
le/la/les plus...: the superlative
C'est le plus rapide. (It's the fastest.)
It's the fastest.
The superlative simply adds the definite article in front of the comparative: le/la/les plus + adjective ('the most') or le/la/les moins + adjective ('the least'). The article agrees with the noun being described, and if the adjective normally follows the noun, le/la/les plus does too (la voiture la plus rapide) — a word-order twist English doesn't have, since English always puts 'the fastest' before the noun.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
| French | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| plus rapide que | plew rah-PEED kuh | faster than |
| moins cher que | mwahn shair kuh | less expensive than |
| aussi grand que | oh-SEE grahn kuh | as tall as |
| le plus rapide | luh plew rah-PEED | the fastest |
| la plus grande | lah plew grahnd | the biggest (feminine) |
| les moins chers | lay mwahn shair | the least expensive (plural) |
| plus intéressant que | plewz an-tay-reh-SAHN kuh | more interesting than |
| moins facile que | mwahn fah-SEEL kuh | less easy than |