In this blog we want to look at expressing yourself with comparatives in German. In English, comparatives are written with –er on the end, e.g. easier, stronger, taller, or with use of the word more e.g. more beautiful.
Similarly in German, you add an –er to the end of most adjectives. Adjectives that end in -el or -er, drop the final -e to form the comparative. For example: teuer – teurer
When using comparatives in German, you have to build the sentence with als (than). For example: Das Haus von Kim ist schöner als das Haus von Nadine.
If you want to say that somehing is as good as something or someone else you use genauso…wie or so…wie in German.
For example:
Kim hat ein genauso schönes Haus wie Nadine. – Kim has a house as nice as Nadine
Sie ist nicht so jung wie du – She’s not as young as you.
When forming the comparatives in German, you need to be aware that the first a,o or u in the sentence can often change to ä,ö, or ü
Here are some useful adjectives with their comparative form:
| German | English |
| alt – älter | old – older |
| groß – größer | tall/big – taller/bigger |
| jung – jünger | young – younger |
| klein – kleiner | small – smaller |
| klug – klüger | clever – more clever |
| langsam – langsamer | slow – slower |
| nett – netter | nice – nicer |
| schnell – schneller | fast – faster |
| schön – schöner | beautiful – more beautiful |
As always, there are a couple of exceptions with comparatives in German. The words gut (good) and viel (much) go to besser (better) and mehr (more). These are pretty simple to remember as they follow the same pattern as in English.