Creo que la tortuga es menos ágil que el ratón.

Questions & Answers about Creo que la tortuga es menos ágil que el ratón.

How do we form the comparison 'less agile than' in Spanish?
We use the structure menos + adjective + que. Here, that gives us menos ágil que. Notice that Spanish uses que for 'than' when comparing two things, not to be confused with its other use as 'that' (like earlier in the sentence: Creo que).
Since la tortuga is feminine, why doesn't the adjective ágil end in -a?
Adjectives that end in a consonant, like ágil (agile) or fácil (easy), usually have the exact same form for both masculine and feminine nouns. If we were talking about multiple turtles, we would add -es to make it plural (ágiles), but the gender doesn't change the spelling here.
Why do we use es instead of está to say the turtle 'is' less agile?
We use ser (here as es) to talk about inherent characteristics or fundamental qualities of an animal. Since a turtle's lack of agility is a normal, permanent characteristic of its species and not a temporary condition, we use es.
Why is there no word for 'I' before creo?
In Spanish, the verb ending tells you who is doing the action. The -o ending in creo means 'I think' or 'I believe'. You can say yo creo, but native speakers usually drop the yo unless they want to add emphasis.

Learn Creo que la tortuga es menos ágil que el ratón and more in Spanish

All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.

  • ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
  • ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
  • ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free