English Grammar Exceptions: Superlative & Comparative

Exceptions, exceptions, exceptions... AAAAH!!! Don’t you hate them? We have so many exceptions in English. In this lesson, I’ll talk about exceptions with comparatives and superlatives in English. A comparative word compares two things by adding an ‘-er’ ending. For example, we change ‘short’ to ‘shorter’ to make a comparative word. A superlative word is one whose quality, whether good or bad, surpasses all others. For example, we change “cute” to “cutest” to show that it is number one of its kind. As you can see, all you have to do to get the superlative is add ‘-est’ to the root word. But, my friends, this is English, and there are exceptions. That’s where this lesson comes in. I will teach you superlative and comparative words that are exceptions to the rule, like “worst”, “best”, “most”, “least”, “farthest”, “more”, “less”, “worse”, and “better”. These are common words that most people use every day, so it’s important to understand them and to say them correctly. Find out how much you know by taking the quiz: https://www.engvid.com/compara....tive-superlative-adj

TRANSCRIPT

Hmm. The One, it's probably the best book I've read in a while. Hi. James from engVid. Today I want to talk to you about, funny enough, The One. And why I say: "The One" is usually when we talk about superlatives and comparatives, the number one comes up quite often. And, now, I'm not going to do your standard lesson on what the comparative is and the superlative is; you probably are aware of this, but I would like to point out five exceptions to the general rules. So, I'm going to quickly go over the difference between comparative and superlative, and then go into the exceptions. Are you ready? Let's go to the board.

So, E, you got my five for me. Cool. You're going to notice on the board I have the number "1" written out repetitively. There's a reason for it, and we'll get into it. But let's start looking at: What is a "superlative"? I like to look at superlative as in Superman. Superman is the best, the strongest, the fastest, la, la, la - number one. So, when you think of a superlative, think of the highest or the best amount. Or, because it's extreme, it could be the worst. Now, I've used a couple of them already, but we're going to go to the board and get a little deeper into them. So, it could be number one at the top or number one at the bottom. Okay?

"Comparative" is when we look at two things and we want to say there's a difference between them. "He is bigger than she is" or "James is bigger than Mr. E" - comparing the two. So, with a comparative, you generally find that we add "er" to the end of the word to tell you that something is being compared to something else. Okay? Comparative, and you'll see "er": "bigger", "smaller", "smarter", "taller". Cool? We got that.

And with a superlative, we add usually "est". Right? And the "est" is for the "biggest", "strongest", "longest", "fastest", and it will be the number one in its category. And remember what I said: It could be the number one as in the best, like the best one position, or in the lowest position number one. Are you ready? So let's go to the board and find out what our exceptions are. You might be surprised, but they're actually quite often used, and actually quite often misunderstood.

So, the first one we're going to look at is the "best". If you're from Japan, it's "ichiban"; if you're from Mexico or not even Mexico, any Latino country, it's "numero uno" or we say "number one". That's what the best is. Kind of simple, right? And we know what "good" is, because what's the opposite of "good"? "Bad". "Good" is something we like. Now, why this is an exception is because usually, if you remember rightly, when I said "biggest", we start with "big" and we go to "biggest", and we go "bigger". So, we use the root word and we just add the "er" or the "est". But when we look over here, if you look at my chart, increasing-meaning it's getting better-there's an improvement going on - we start with the word "good". That has nothing to do with the word "best". Very different. And this is why it's an exception; it doesn't follow the rule of: Take the root word and add "er" or "est". It's a completely different word, but they are related in we say something starts off "good" - something you like, like 70%... 75% on a test is good. It's not great, but it's good, right? Or 80%.

"Better", and this is where we talk about the improvement; "er" means a comparative... A comparison, and we're looking at two different things and comparing them; while "good" is 75%, "better" than that is 90%. There's a difference between the two numbers; it's an improvement or an increase. But the "best" would be 100%. Right? See, if you get 100%, you can't get much better than 100%, and we say that's the "best". Now, these numbers aren't real. I'm not saying each number corresponds to these things, but what I'm trying to give you an idea is how they're related. […]