Japanese 249 - Comparisons with より ~ ほうが

We've learned how to use より to compare nouns, and now we’re going to learn a similar construction that allows us to compare adjectives and verbs as well.

In Japanese, adjectives don’t change when you want to make a comparison. Rather than adding a suffix to them as in English (e.g. fast, faster), in Japanese we use the phrase より ~ ほうが also written as より ~ ほう.

In a previous lesson, we learned to say:

When using より ~ ほうが, we would say:

It can also be written the other way round, so A ほうが B より~. For example:

より ~ ほうが combines with verbs, adjectives and nouns as follows:

Verb より Verb ほう がVerb ほう が Verb より
Adjective より い-adjective ほう がい-adjective ほう が Adjective より
Adjective より な-adjective + な ほう がな-adjective + な ほう が Adjective より
Noun より Noun + の ほう がNoun + の ほう が Noun より

See the below tables for some more examples:

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