Haec fabula pueris gratior est quam illa.

Haec is the feminine singular nominative form of the demonstrative hic, haec, hoc = this.

It is feminine singular because it goes with fabula, and fabula is a feminine singular noun. Since fabula is also the subject of the sentence, haec must be nominative too.

So:

• haec fabula = this story

Compare:

• hic puer = this boy
• haec fabula = this story
• hoc templum = this temple

Latin demonstratives must agree with the noun they describe in gender, number, and case.

Fabula is nominative singular.

You can tell because it is the subject of the sentence: the story is the thing being described as more pleasing.

Also, the verb is est = is, so the basic structure is:

• Haec fabula ... gratior est
  = This story is more pleasing ...

That means fabula is the noun doing the being in the sentence, so nominative makes sense.

Because gratus and its comparative gratior often take the dative of the person to whom something is pleasing, welcome, or dear.

So:

• pueris gratior = more pleasing to the boys
• literally, something like dearer to the boys

This is a very common Latin pattern. English often uses to here, and Latin uses the dative.

Examples:

• Puero grata est fabula. = The story is pleasing to the boy.
• Haec fabula pueris gratior est. = This story is more pleasing to the boys.

So pueris is not the subject and not a direct object. It is the person affected by the adjective.

Gratior is the comparative form of gratus.

• gratus, -a, -um = pleasing, welcome, dear
• gratior = more pleasing, dearer, more welcome

In this sentence it agrees with fabula, so it describes the story.

A useful thing to remember is that comparative adjectives in Latin often end in:

• -ior for masculine/feminine
• -ius for neuter

So:

• masculine/feminine nominative singular: gratior
• neuter nominative singular: gratius

Here it is gratior because fabula is feminine.

Because in the comparative, the nominative singular masculine and feminine have the same form: -ior.

So for a comparative adjective:

• masculine nominative singular: gratior
• feminine nominative singular: gratior
• neuter nominative singular: gratius

That is different from many regular first/second-declension adjectives, where masculine and feminine look different:

• gratus = masculine
• grata = feminine
• gratum = neuter

But in the comparative, masculine and feminine merge in the nominative singular.

Est is the verb is, and it links the subject haec fabula with the predicate adjective gratior.

So the structure is:

• Haec fabula = subject
• gratior = predicate adjective
• est = linking verb

Together:

• This story is more pleasing ...

Latin sometimes omits forms of sum in certain styles, especially poetry, but in ordinary prose est is perfectly normal and expected.

Quam means than and introduces the second part of the comparison.

So:

• gratior est quam illa
  = is more pleasing than that one

This is the standard way Latin makes a comparison with a comparative adjective:

• comparative adjective + quam

Example:

• Marcus altior est quam Quintus.
  = Marcus is taller than Quintus.

Here:

• gratior = more pleasing
• quam illa = than that one

Illa stands by itself because the noun is understood from the context.

The full idea is:

• Haec fabula pueris gratior est quam illa fabula.

But Latin often leaves out a repeated noun when it is obvious. So illa means:

• that one
• more literally, that story

This is very natural in Latin and in English too:

• This story is better than that one.

Here illa is feminine singular nominative, matching the understood fabula.

Because it is being compared directly with the subject haec fabula after quam.

The comparison is between:

• haec fabula = this story
• illa (fabula) = that story

So both sides of the comparison are nominative.

In other words:

• This story is more pleasing than that story

Latin often uses the same case after quam that the compared word would have in a full version of the sentence.

No. Although gratus is historically related to the idea of gratitude, in this construction it means pleasing, welcome, or dear.

So pueris gratior means:

• more pleasing to the boys
• dearer to the boys
• more welcome to the boys

Not:

• more grateful to the boys

That English word is misleading here. The Latin adjective is describing how the boys feel about the story, not the story’s attitude toward the boys.

Yes, the word order is perfectly normal Latin.

Latin is much freer than English because the endings show the relationships between the words. So the sentence can place words in an order that sounds natural or emphasizes certain parts.

Here:

• Haec fabula comes first, introducing the topic.
• pueris is placed before gratior, close to the adjective it belongs with.
• quam illa comes at the end, where the comparison is completed.

An English-like order might be:

• Haec fabula est gratior pueris quam illa

But the given order is smoother and more idiomatic in Latin prose.

It could in some contexts, but gratior is the normal and better way here.

Latin usually prefers:

• comparative adjective rather than
• magis + positive adjective

So:

• gratior = the regular comparative = more pleasing

Using magis grata would be less elegant and usually unnecessary unless there were some special stylistic reason.

So a learner should take gratior as the standard form to expect.

The sentence follows this pattern:

demonstrative + subject noun + dative of person + comparative adjective + est + quam + demonstrative

Broken down:

• Haec fabula = this story
• pueris = to the boys
• gratior est = is more pleasing
• quam illa = than that one

So the core pattern is:

X is more Y to someone than Z

In Latin:

• X nominative
• someone in the dative
• comparative adjective
• quam + Z

That is a very useful pattern to recognize in other sentences too.