Comparatives with 더 (more) and 덜 (less)

English builds comparatives by reshaping the adjective: big → bigger, expensive → more expensive, good → better. Korean does none of that. A Korean adjective is a descriptive verb, and just as you would never re-spell a verb to mean "more," you never re-spell an adjective. Instead you park a small adverb in front of it: 더 "more" or 덜 "less." The adjective stays in its plain conjugated form and does exactly one job — describe. This is one of the genuinely easy corners of Korean grammar, and this page is mostly about not overcomplicating it.

The whole rule: 더 / 덜 + unchanged adjective

Put 더 before an adjective and you get "more "; put 덜 before it and you get "less ." The adjective itself is untouched — 커요 stays 커요, 비싸요 stays 비싸요.

Notice there is no bigger, no more, no -er fused into the word — the comparison lives entirely in the free-standing adverb. 더 커요 is literally "more is-big," 덜 비싸요 is "less is-expensive." Because the adjective is a verb, 더/덜 modify it the way any adverb modifies a verb (like 빨리 "quickly" in 빨리 가요). There is nothing morphological to memorize.

더 also works with verbs — it's a plain adverb

Because 더 and 덜 are ordinary degree adverbs, they aren't confined to adjectives. They comfortably modify action verbs too, tuning "how much" an action happens.

This is why 더 slots so naturally in front of an adjective — grammatically it is doing the same thing it does to a verb. It also pairs with quantity words like 조금 "a little" and 훨씬 "much / far" to fine-tune the degree: 조금 더 "a little more," 훨씬 더 "much more."

더 can stand completely alone as "more"

Drop the adjective entirely and 더 survives as a bare word meaning "more (of something)." This is one of the most useful one-word utterances in the language, especially at a table.

Likewise 덜 can stand alone for "less," though this is rarer in isolation. The everyday standalone pair you will actually say is 더 "more" and 그만 "that's enough / stop."

덜 is under-taught: "less in degree," not "fewer in number"

Textbooks drill 더 and skip 덜, which leaves learners with a lopsided sense of "less." Two things to lock in. First, 덜 means less in degree, not "fewer in number" — it lowers how intensely a quality holds, not how many items there are. For countable "fewer," Korean reaches for 적게 or 덜 combined with the right verb, not 덜 alone.

Second, 덜 has a favorite idiomatic home: describing something as not fully done. 덜 익다 literally "be less ripened/cooked" is the standard way to say food is underdone.

So 덜 is not just "the opposite of 더" in the abstract — it is an everyday word for underdone, half-dry, not-quite-there states. When your rice is 덜 됐어요, it isn't cooked yet.

Comparatives modify nouns too (with the attributive)

To stick a comparative in front of a noun, you build the attributive form of the adjective and keep 더 in front of it: 더 큰 "bigger (that modifies a noun)," 더 싼 "cheaper." This is where you hear comparatives most in shops.

The 더 sits outside the whole adjective-plus-noun unit; the attributive ending does the modifying. Nothing new about comparison here — just the ordinary attributive with 더 riding in front.

Where this is heading: "more than X"

So far every example compares against an implied standard ("better [than that]," "bigger [than the last one]"). To name the thing you're comparing against — "hotter than winter," "taller than me" — Korean adds the particle 보다 "than" onto that standard, and 더 stays right where it is: 겨울보다 더 더워요. That construction is the comparison with 보다 page, and the fine 더/덜 tuning as a particle pairing lives on 보다 + 더 / 덜.

Common Mistakes

1. Trying to reshape the adjective into a comparative. There is no ×커어요 for "bigger" — the adjective stays 커요, and 더 does the work.

2. Dropping 더 and expecting comparison from context. Korean generally needs the explicit 더/덜 — a bare 좋아요 just means "it's good," not "it's better."

3. Reading 덜 as 'fewer' for countable things. 덜 lowers a degree, not a count.

4. Forgetting the attributive before a noun. With 더 in front of a noun, the adjective still needs its attributive form.

Key Takeaways

• Korean has no comparative inflection: place 더 "more" or 덜 "less" before an unchanged adjective (더 커요, 덜 매워요).
• 더/덜 are ordinary degree adverbs, so they modify verbs too (덜 마셔요) and pair with 조금 / 훨씬.
• 더 stands alone as "more" (더 주세요, 더 없어요?).
• 덜 = less in degree, not fewer in number; its signature use is underdone (덜 익었어요).
• To name the standard ("more than X"), add the particle 보다 — 더 stays in place.