German Lessons

Comparing things in GermanLesson 8

How do you compare things in German? This lesson is all about comparing things.

06.02.2023
💡 In this lesson, you'll learn how to compare things in German. You'll learn:
  • How to do Basic Comparisons
  • How to Form the Superlative in German

Basic Comparisons

As a reminder, here are a few description words, we've already learned:

klein
small
schlau
smart
ehrlich
honest
nett
nice

What would you say if you wanted to say that Tom is smaller than Sahil, or that Amina is smarter than Paul? For this, you will need to know how to turn these words into their comparatives. In English, that's easy: small becomes smaller, and smart becomes smarter. In German, it's pretty similar:

Tom ist kleiner als Sahil.
Amina ist schlauer als Paul.

When the adjectives contain a vowel in the first syllable, these often turn into their Umlaut counterpart:

groß
größer
alt
älter
jung
jünger
dumm
dümmer

The Superlative

What do you say if Sahil isn't just taller than Tom, but also taller than anyone else in the room? What do you say if Amina isn't only smarter than Paul, but the smartest student in class? The simple answer is that you need a superlative for that: tallest, smartest - and so on.

Sahil ist der größte Junge im Zimmer.
Amina ist die schlauste Schülerin in der Klasse.
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