Questions & Answers about Een meer is meestal kleiner dan een zee.
Wait, doesn't meer mean "more"?
Yes, it often does! Meer is a homonym. As an adjective or adverb, it means "more" (the comparative of veel). But as a noun, het meer means "the lake". Because it has een (a) in front of it here, we know it's the noun form.
How is the comparative kleiner formed?
Just like in English, you usually add -er to the end of a short adjective to compare things. The base word is klein (small), so adding -er makes it kleiner (smaller).
I sometimes hear Dutch people say als when comparing things. Why is it dan here?
The official rule in Dutch is to use dan (than) after a comparative adjective like kleiner (smaller). You use als (as) when two things are equal, like in even klein als (as small as). Some native speakers use als for unequal comparisons by mistake, but dan is the grammatically correct word here!
Could I put meestal at the beginning of the sentence?
Yes! You could say Meestal is een meer kleiner dan een zee. Just remember that because the adverb meestal takes the first position, the verb (is) and the subject (een meer) have to swap places. This is called inversion, which you learned in earlier lessons.