The first comparison you learn in Spanish is also one of the most useful: how to say that something is more or less than something else. The frame is small — más / menos on one side, que on the other — and it slots in front of adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and even whole verbs. The whole machinery is pleasantly regular, with a single but important twist: before a number, que turns into de. Once you have that and the four irregular comparatives (mejor, peor, mayor, menor, covered on their own page), you can compare almost anything in Spanish.
The basic frame
The pattern is the same regardless of what kind of word you put in the middle:
más / menos + [adjective / adverb / noun] + que + [second term]
The second term is whatever you're comparing against — a noun, a pronoun, even a whole clause. Spanish does not change the form of the adjective the way some languages do (English adds -er, French adds plus); the adjective stays in its normal form and más or menos does all the comparative work.
With adjectives
Mi hermano es más alto que yo.
My brother is taller than I am.
Esta película es menos interesante que la anterior.
This film is less interesting than the previous one.
Madrid es más caro que Sevilla, pero los sueldos también son más altos.
Madrid is more expensive than Seville, but salaries are higher too.
Note that the adjective agrees with its noun in gender and number (más alta, más altos, más altas), exactly as it would without the comparison.
With adverbs
Habla más despacio que su hermana — apenas se le entiende.
He speaks more slowly than his sister — you can barely understand him.
Llegué más tarde que de costumbre porque había mucho tráfico.
I arrived later than usual because there was a lot of traffic.
Adverbs are invariable, so nothing agrees with anything — más despacio stays más despacio no matter who's doing the speaking.
With nouns
Tengo más amigos que tú, pero tú tienes más tiempo libre.
I have more friends than you, but you have more free time.
En este barrio hay menos ruido que en el centro.
There's less noise in this neighbourhood than in the centre.
When the middle term is a noun, más and menos behave like quantifiers — more friends, less noise. In peninsular Spanish you do not add an article before the noun in this construction: tengo más amigos, never ❌tengo los más amigos.
With verbs
A whole action can sit in the middle if you simply leave más / menos dangling after the verb:
Mi compañera de piso estudia más que yo, pero saca peores notas.
My flatmate studies more than I do, but she gets worse grades.
Antes salía menos que ahora.
I used to go out less than I do now.
English needs the auxiliary do in more than I do; Spanish doesn't — the pronoun yo on its own is enough.
The number rule: que becomes de
Here is the single most important rule on this page, and the one peninsular learners trip over the most:
En la fiesta había más de cincuenta personas.
There were more than fifty people at the party.
El piso cuesta menos de mil euros al mes, que en Madrid es un chollo.
The flat costs less than a thousand euros a month, which in Madrid is a steal.
Llevo más de dos años aprendiendo español.
I've been learning Spanish for more than two years.
Why? Because más de cinco is not really comparing two things — it's marking a threshold. You're saying "the quantity is somewhere above five," not "fifty is more than five." Spanish treats this as a quantitative cutoff and reaches for de, the preposition of partition (la mitad de, un poco de). English keeps than in both cases, which is exactly why English speakers get this wrong.
The same logic applies to other expressions of quantity, even when no digit is involved:
Compró más de la mitad de los libros que estaban en oferta.
She bought more than half of the books that were on sale.
Tardamos menos de lo previsto en llegar al pueblo.
It took us less time than expected to get to the village.
That last one introduces a special pattern worth marking.
Más / menos de lo que — "than what was expected"
When you want to say "more X than I thought" or "harder than it seems," Spanish uses de lo que instead of que:
Este examen es más difícil de lo que pensaba.
This exam is harder than I thought.
Habla mejor inglés de lo que parece.
He speaks better English than he seems to.
Vino menos gente de la que esperábamos.
Fewer people came than we were expecting.
The version de lo que is for adjectives, adverbs, and verbs; de la que / del que / de los que / de las que agree with a noun when one is present (menos gente → de la que; menos libros → de los que). This is a comparative with a clause on the right-hand side, and Spanish marks it with de + a relative pronoun rather than que.
Subject pronouns after que
After the que of comparison, Spanish keeps the subject pronoun, not an object form. English does both (taller than I / taller than me); Spanish only does the first.
Es más rápido que yo.
He's faster than I am.
Sabe más que nosotros sobre música clásica.
She knows more about classical music than we do.
Saying ❌es más rápido que mí sounds wrong to a native ear. The exception is when the second term is the object of a preposition (a mí me gusta más el jazz que a ti), but that's its own pattern — there, a mí and a ti are not really the second term of the comparison but parallel datives.
It's also common — and very natural in Spain — to leave the pronoun in even when English would omit it, because Spanish doesn't have the do-auxiliary to fall back on. Estudia más que yo is more natural than just ❌estudia más.
A preview: the four irregular comparatives
Four high-frequency adjectives sidestep the más + adjective pattern and use a dedicated single-word comparative form. We cover them in depth on their own page (linked above), but the table is worth previewing so you recognise them when they appear:
| Adjective | Irregular comparative | Example |
|---|---|---|
| bueno (good) | mejor (better) | Este café es mejor que el otro. |
| malo (bad) | peor (worse) | El tiempo está peor que ayer. |
| grande (big/old) | mayor (older / greater) | Mi hermana mayor vive en Bilbao. |
| pequeño (small/young) | menor (younger / lesser) | Es la menor de las tres. |
For now, just know that these four replace más bueno, más malo, más grande, más pequeño in many contexts — most rigidly with mejor and peor, more flexibly with mayor and menor. Más bueno que el pan (literally "kinder than bread") exists as a fixed idiom about moral character; otherwise mejor is what you want.
Equality: a quick contrast
For completeness, "as X as" — a comparison of equality rather than inequality — uses a different frame: tan + adjective/adverb + como, or tanto/-a/-os/-as + noun + como.
Eres tan inteligente como tu padre.
You're as smart as your father.
No tengo tanto dinero como antes.
I don't have as much money as I used to.
This page is about desigualdad (inequality), so we won't go further with equality here, but it's useful to know what frame Spanish reaches for when the comparison balances out instead of tipping one way.
Putting it all together
A short paragraph that uses the whole machinery at once:
Mi piso nuevo es más pequeño que el anterior, pero está mejor situado y cuesta menos de seiscientos euros al mes. Tardo menos de diez minutos en llegar al trabajo, así que tengo más tiempo libre que antes.
My new flat is smaller than the previous one, but it's better located and costs less than six hundred euros a month. It takes me under ten minutes to get to work, so I have more free time than before.
Notice the moves: más pequeño que (adjective comparison), mejor (irregular comparative — covered on the next page), menos de seiscientos (number → de), menos de diez minutos (number → de), más tiempo libre que antes (noun comparison).
Common Mistakes
❌ Había más que cincuenta personas en la fiesta.
Wrong — before a number, use 'de', not 'que'.
✅ Había más de cincuenta personas en la fiesta.
There were more than fifty people at the party.
❌ Mi hermano es más bueno en mates que yo.
Awkward — for quality of skill or thing, use 'mejor', not 'más bueno'.
✅ Mi hermano es mejor en mates que yo.
My brother is better at maths than I am.
❌ Es más alto que mí.
Wrong — after the comparative 'que', use the subject pronoun 'yo', not the object 'mí'.
✅ Es más alto que yo.
He's taller than I am.
❌ Este examen es más difícil que pensaba.
Wrong — with a clause on the right, use 'de lo que', not 'que'.
✅ Este examen es más difícil de lo que pensaba.
This exam is harder than I thought.
❌ Tengo los más amigos que tú.
Wrong — no article before the noun in a 'más + noun + que' comparison.
✅ Tengo más amigos que tú.
I have more friends than you do.
Key takeaways
- The default frame is más / menos + adj / adv / noun / verb + que + second term. Adjectives agree with their noun; adverbs don't change; nouns take no article.
- Before a number or quantitative cutoff, que becomes de. Más de cinco euros, menos de la mitad.
- Before a clause ("than I thought / than expected"), use de lo que (or de la que / del que / de los que / de las que if a noun governs the agreement).
- After comparative que, use the subject pronoun: más alto que yo, never ❌que mí.
- Four adjectives have irregular comparatives — mejor, peor, mayor, menor — which replace más
- adjective in many contexts. They get their own page.
Now practice Spanish
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Start learning Spanish→Related Topics
- Comparativos irregulares: mejor, peor, mayor, menorA2 — Spanish has four irregular comparatives — mejor, peor, mayor, menor — that replace 'más bueno/malo/grande/pequeño' in everyday usage, with a clear split between age, abstract magnitude, and physical size.
- Superlativos: el más altoA2 — Spanish builds superlatives with 'el/la/los/las + más/menos + adjective + de' for relative ('the tallest in the class') and with '-ísimo' or 'muy' for absolute ('extremely tall').
- Cuanto más…más: comparativo correlativoB2 — The correlative 'cuanto más… más…' construction pairs two parallel comparatives ('the more X, the more Y'), with cuanto agreeing with any noun it modifies and indicative/subjunctive choice depending on generality vs hypothesis.
- Comparativos complejos: más/menos…que el queB2 — Advanced Spanish comparison: comparatives with relative clauses (más alto que el que vimos), the de/que split with numbers (más de cinco), de lo que with embedded clauses, and full superlatives.