Degrees of comparison in English in an accessible form

The study and consolidation of the topic of the degree of comparison in English can not be called either the most difficult or the simplest task. Just the exceptions that are available sometimes cause an error that needs to be corrected and not repeated in the future. To do this, we must first understand that English (as well as Russian) qualitative adverbs and adjectives can have degrees of comparison. And, if in Russian there is, as a rule, a complicated and simple form of formation of degrees of comparison and adjectives, and adverbs, then the degrees of comparison in English have a strict distinction for the formation of degrees of comparison for one- and two-syllabic adjectives and adverbs.

So the type of education degree of comparison in English is divided into:

• Simple / monosyllabic: harsh - harsher - the harshest.
• Multisyllabic: splendid - more splendid - the most splendid.
• Wrong: far - farther / further - farthest / furthest.

In the examples above, no distinction was made between adverbs and adjectives, since in fact, in that part of the grammar that speaks of the degree of comparison, the melting, for both parts of the speech of the English language, is identical.

As the simplest rule that can be used to determine the type of education of the degree of comparison of any English adjective or adverb, one can use the Russian equivalents of the same words. For example, in Russian we say "good" - "better" - "best". If we omit the excellent exponent , we will see that the given adverb of the Russian language has three different words in its three forms: good, better, best (you can, of course, use the composite form - the best one - but in this example it's better to use a form from One word). This immediately pushes us to the idea that this same adverb in English will also be wrong (which corresponds to reality). Any student can independently try to find inconsistencies in the degree of comparison of any pair of Russian and English adverbs or adjectives (equivalents).

The second fairly simple rule, which is easy to understand and use, when necessary, relates to the formation of multisyllabic adjectives and adverbs. This rule says: when a word consists of two or more syllables, its comparative form is denoted by the preceding word "more", and the superior one by the expression "the most". Of course, that it is impossible to take into account all the nuances of using the degrees of comparison and learn how to quickly determine which rule can be used in a particular situation, but for most cases these rules are enough.

The third simple but very important rule to remember is that the 3rd degree of comparison of adverbs and adjectives, regardless of the type of education of degrees, always has a definite article with it. The fact that there is no gender category for all parts of speech, and the system of inflexions is so primitive in comparison with Russian, that there is almost nothing to tangle, greatly facilitates the fate of students. The exception, perhaps, is the so-called "dumb e" at the end of some words, which affects the vowel in the previous syllable and makes it open in that case.