Questions & Answers about Drengen er stærk, men mændene er stærkere.
How is the comparative "stronger" formed in this sentence?
We take the base adjective stærk (strong) and add the suffix -ere to get stærkere (stronger). This is the standard way to form comparatives for regular adjectives in Danish, which is very similar to adding "-er" in English.
Does stærkere change its ending because it describes the plural noun mændene?
No! Unlike basic adjectives that usually add an -e for plural nouns, comparative adjectives ending in -ere are "locked" and never change form to match gender or number. It will always be stærkere whether it describes a singular or a plural noun.
We learned about using end (than) for comparisons. Why isn't it used here?
You only use end when directly stating what the subject is being compared to in the same clause, like in mændene er stærkere end drengen (the men are stronger than the boy). In this sentence, we are just making two separate statements connected by men (but), so end is not needed.
How do we get the word mændene (the men)?
This is a great noun review! The word mand (man) has an irregular plural where the vowel changes, becoming mænd (men). To say "the" men, we add the definite plural suffix -ene, resulting in mændene.