Lesson 83 👩‍🏫 Basic English with Jennifer 👩🏽‍🎓👨‍🎓Comparatives and Superlatives

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Do you remember how we compare two things? For example, one bag is bigger and heavier.

Another bag is smaller and lighter.

We add the ending -er to short adjectives, adjectives with one or two syllables.

"Big" has one syllable: big.

big - bigger

"Heavy" has two syllables: heavy.

heavy - heavier

Now let's compare three or more things. Ready? You can practice with Andreia and Flavia.

All right. So we've been practicing using -er: younger, faster,

newer, older. Just like we had good - better - best, we can have something that's new,

something that's newer, and then from a group we can talk about

new - newer...

newest. The newest. Again. So again we have -est and "the newest."

All the spelling is the same. So if I take, for example, "small,"

it's going to be "the smallest."

young

the youngest

nice

the nicest

And the same rules. If I take "pretty," y changes to i,

and we get

"the prettiest."

The prettiest. Who's the prettiest? Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, and Lady Gaga?

Who's the prettiest?

Maybe Julia Roberts, I think personally,

is the prettiest. Same thing: dirty. Dirty -

the dirtiest.

We can look Andreia's floor. Consider Flavia's floor and my floor, and I think my floor is probably

the dirtiest.

The dirtiest. Okay. Let's try this.

We'll come up with ideas.

Can you two ladies tell me three fast animals?

Lion. Lion. Okay. Yeah. Lion.

Fast? Yeah. Cats.

Okay, like cats in our house. Right? Cats and I'm gonna say

horses.

Which are the fastest? What do you think?

I think it's lions.

Are fastest.

Lions are the fastest. Horses are pretty fast, but probably lions are the fastest.

Okay. Which means out of these...

What if we change that to

"slow"?

Which animals are the slowest?

Cats

Cats are the slowest. The slowest of these three. The slowest of these three.

Okay. Um, let's talk about cold places.

I think of Alaska.

What else? Where else is it cold?

Boston. Boston!

Massachusetts. Massachusetts can be cold. It's May and it's cold.

Where else is it cold?

Is there a cold place in South America?

No? It's all warm?

Argentina.

Argentina?

So, what do you think Flavia? Which place is the coldest?

Alaska is the coldest.

So which one do you think might be the warmest?

Which one do you think is going to be the warmest? Not cold, but warm.

Argentina.

Argentina is the warmest. The warmest.

In our houses, there are things that we often have to lift. Where do you put your laundry? Your dirty clothes?

All that laundry? I use a basket. Do you use a basket for your dirty clothes?

No. No? You use the floor?

I have a basket. What do you have?

Just the floor? Yes.

I have a laundry basket

probably because I need to carry the basket

downstairs to my washing machine. Okay. We won't worry about that. How about, um...

What else do you have?

No, nothing? What do you lift? How about, um, oh! A pot? Maybe.

Your pot. When you cook. A pot of water.

In the kitchen.

Like when you make pasta.

Okay. So how about when you make pasta, you have a pot pot, and the pot has water. And we have to take it from

the sink to the oven, so a pot of water. Pot of water.

Okay.

Water.

And when you go to school, do you take books? Yes. Yeah? Books.

So we'll say your schoolbooks.

So all these things are a little heavy: the purse, pot of water, and schoolbooks. Schoolbooks. Which is the heaviest?

The heaviest.

The purse. The purse is the heaviest.

Yeah, for me too. My purse is the heaviest of all. Yeah. Do you agree? Yes.

So, what's the lightest thing here? Your purse, a pot of water, or your schoolbooks? What's the lightest?

[A] pot of water [is] the lightest.

Is the lightest. A pot of water is the lightest. Good.

Okay. So we can add the ending -est to short adjectives,

adjectives with one or two syllables.

Help me form adjectives to compare three or more things.

Note the spelling of all these adjectives with the ending -est.

Now look at photos. Which building is the tallest?

Say the answer out loud. Say a whole sentence.

Which vehicle is the fastest?

Which place is the coldest?

Let's go on. We need to talk about longer adjectives. Do you see these two places?

Can we say that one place is beautifuller than the other?

No, that's not right. Can we say that one place is more beautifuller than the other?

That's not right. Listen and learn the correct way to compare two things with a long adjective.

Ladies, with all of these words, you know, the words are very

short. Right? Hot, cold, young, bored, pretty, dirty.

So maybe one syllable or two.

Cold, hot, big, small, dirty, pretty.

What about adjectives that are longer? long - longer

Beautiful, interesting,

intelligent, delicious.

How many syllables?

Beautiful - 3

Interesting -3

Intelligent - 4

Delicious - 3

Longer adjectives don't use -er.

We need help from what?

More. More. Okay.

That's why we need help with "more intelligent, more delicious" and "than." We still use "than."

Right?

Intelligent, delicious, interesting.

Can you tell me in Boston are there two beautiful places?

The Public Garden.

Mmm. The public garden and what else?

Boston Common.

Which one is more beautiful?

The Public Garden. Oh? The Public Garden.

The Public Garden is more beautiful than Boston Common.

I like just down by the river, the Charles River. I think it's very pretty near the river.

Is the Charles River more beautiful than The Public Garden?

No.

The Public Garden is more beautiful than the Charles River.

The Charles River.

Is there one place that's more interesting? Uh-huh.

Interesting? The beach or Charles River? The Charles River [is] interesting.

Is...

more...

interesting than

the beach. The beach. Yeah, I think so, too. What can you see at the river? Or what can you do?

Walk. You can walk. True. I like looking at the boats.

There's a lot of...there are a lot of people.

Right? Near the river, on the river. I think the Charles River is probably more interesting to watch. Okay.

Let's talk about food. I know we've talked about chocolate ice cream, chocolate cake, chocolate sauce.

We all love it.

Is there anything more delicious than chocolate cake? Or no?

What is more delicious than chocolate cake? There can be cake. There can be ice cream.

Oh, do you know pudding?

Pudding? Like it's creamy. Yeah, so...

is cake more delicious than pudding?

Or is pudding more delicious than cake? Pudding [is] more delicious than cake.

Delicious, delicious, delicious, delicious. What do you think is more delicious, ice cream or pudding?

Pudding is more delicious than ice cream.

Yeah, it's hard to say.

We can also talk about "intelligent."

Intelligent. It's hard to say who's more intelligent than another, but it gives you an example of

an adjective that's very long, and we can't say "intelligenter" or "more intelligenter."

You say, "more intelligent than."

We can talk about maybe famous people that we know that one person is smarter or more

intelligent than another. Right?

I don't want to be mean think about politicians. I'm thinking about presidents who are smart, presidents who are smarter.

Leaders are smart. Oh, who is your president? Who's the president of Brazil?

Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro. Who was before Bolsonaro?

Dilma. Dilma.

What do people think? Who is more intelligent?

Bolsonaro is more intelligent than Dilma.

No! No.

And what do you think? Dilma is more intelligent than Bolsonaro.

Politics! People disagree. In the U.S., you say,

you know, Obama's smarter than Clinton or Clinton's more intelligent than Trump.

Politics are always something to fight about.

Okay.

beautiful

more beautiful

We use adjectives like "more beautiful" to compare two things. We use "more"

before longer adjectives.

more beautiful

more interesting

more dangerous

more intelligent

What about three or more things and long adjectives? Can we say "more beautifullest"?

Uh-uh. That's not right. Do you know the correct form?

Watch and listen. Let's learn the correct way to use long adjectives when we compare three or more things.

Now just as we had "more" if we have three, like cake, ice cream, and pudding, we can also use

"the most." The most. Who is the most intelligent? What's the most delicious food?

Name the most interesting place. Who's the most beautiful woman. Right? We can't say

-est. It has to be "most" because these are long adjectives. Right?

So what do you think is the most delicious dessert? What's the most delicious here?

Pudding is the most that is the most delicious. It's the most delicious. Do you agree? Uh-huh.

Oh, I think cake, chocolate cake is the most delicious. All right. So we're going to practice that. Do you have pens?

One for you.

All right.

Four questions. Number one.

Oh! Sorry.

Name the most beautiful place in the world. The most beautiful place.

Place, not country. Place, country, anything beautiful. The most beautiful place.

Name the most intelligent person, you know.

The most intelligent person you know.

Name the most interesting place in Boston. Maybe not the most beautiful, the most interesting. The most interesting.

It can be these or something else. Name the most delicious

dessert of all.

The most delicious dessert of all.

Now we can share.

So we have to talk about the most beautiful, and most intelligent, the most interesting, and the most delicious

things and people.

I'll tell you my answer. I think the most beautiful place is Hawaii. Hmm. What did you say?

Hawaii. Did you?

What do you think?

I think the most beautiful place is Hawaii.

Do you think Hawaii is more beautiful than Brazil? Yes. Really? Uh-huh.

I've seen pictures of Brazil. It looks beautiful. What do you think is the most beautiful place?

The [most] beautiful place is...

Location?

The Public Garden. The Public Garden. The Public Garden is the most most beautiful place here in Massachusetts. Maybe.

Yeah. Okay. Do you remember we said...

We had to think about the most intelligent person we know.

Who's the most intelligent person you know? My husband [is] the most the most intelligent

person. Person. He's the most intelligent person. He's the most...

the most intelligent person. What did you say?

My mom. Oh! Very good.

Give me the whole sentence. My mom is the most intelligent person.

That's nice.

Okay. I also said my husband is probably the most intelligent person I know. He's very smart. I asked you,

"What's the most interesting place in Boston?"

Boston [Public] Library.

The library is the most

interesting place in Boston.

yeah, I said the North End.

The North End is the most interesting place. There's restaurants. There's history.

I haven't been there in a while. It's very interesting. The North End is the most interesting place, I think. What do you think?

The public library. The public library. The public library [is]

the most interesting. The most interesting place in Boston. Yeah.

And finally, of course, the most delicious dessert. What's that?

Chocolate cake is the most delicious. Is the most delicious dessert. Do you agree?

Uh...brigadeiro?

Oh yes! I know brigadeiros.

Okay. I wrote that chocolate cake is the most delicious dessert,

but I'll change it. I think but brigadeiros are

more delicious than chocolate cake. Oh yes.

Actually, I forgot about brigadeiros.

Would you like a turn? You can share your ideas. Read these questions and write your answers in the comments.

Name the most beautiful place in the world.

Named the most intelligent person you know.

Named the most delicious dessert.

Flavia, Andreia, and I are going to try one more exercise.

We're going to compare two things, and we'll use short and long adjectives.

Listen. And then you can try too. Okay?

So now we're going to each think of two things.

What do we want to talk about? Two things.

And compare and write three ideas.

Right? Which is nicer? Which is faster? Which is more beautiful?

So what are you going to talk about? Take a moment.

If you can, try to use one with "more," like more interesting, more delicious, more expensive.

Okay.

I just have little ideas to help me remember.

Okay. I try. We'll try.

I'll go first. So I want to talk about the piano and the accordion

because I play the piano and I try to play the accordion.

I'm better on the piano.

Three things. I think the piano is easier because the piano has keys.

The accordion has keys and buttons.

So the piano is easier. The accordion is heavier.

The piano -- you just sit and you play. The accordion -- you have to hold. The accordion is heavier.

The piano, I think, is more interesting

than the accordion because you can play so much music.

So the piano is easier, the accordion is heavier, and the piano is more interesting.

That's what I think. What do you want to talk about?

I want to talk about food. Okay.

Brazilian food is better than American food. Okay.

I actually agree.

American restaurant is

more cheap

is cheaper...is cheaper than Brazilian restaurant.

Mm-hmm, we can use "restaurants" to mean all of them.

So Brazilian restaurants and American restaurants. Which is cheaper?

American.

So American restaurants are cheaper than Brazilian restaurants.

Brazilian dessert is more delicious than American dessert.

Yeah. I agree.

And again just like restaurants, you can talk about all desserts. So Brazilian desserts

are more delicious than American desserts.

Yeah, besides brigadeiros, what do you like? What other desserts are there? Brigadeiro.

Is there another dessert? You have a pudding. Don't you have rice pudding? Yes.

Condensed milk. Yes!

Yes. Oh, that's delicious. Yeah, it's more delicious. I agree. I think it's very delicious. What do you want to talk about?

Dogs and cats.

Dogs is heaviest?

Heavier.

Dogs is heavier than cats. Mm-hmm. Stop. Dogs, dogs.

Cats, cats.

So dogs is or are? Are.

Dogs are...

heaviest?

...heavier than cats.

And cats are

fast...faster...faster than dogs.

Cats are

intelligent...

more intelligent than dogs.

Yeah. Whoa! That was very good. Okay. Yeah, I think many people say cats are very intelligent. Yeah.

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