The superlative with short and long adjectives

🔊 La maîtresse lit pour toi

Read these two sentences about Nepal: “Rice and corn grow in the cooler hill regions.” — “Potatoes and barley grow at higher elevations. Temperatures are the coolest there.” The adjective is the same word, cool, and it has been changed twice, in two different ways. The first change compares two places. The second one says something no comparison can say. What exactly does that second form do, and why does it need the little word the in front of it?

🎓في نهاية هذا الدرس ستكون قادرا على:

التمييز بين النعت القصير والنعت الطويل، وتحديد صيغة التفضيل الموافقة لكلّ منهما
بناء صيغة التفضيل العليا : ⁦the + adjective + -est⁩ و⁦the most + adjective⁩
حفظ الشواذّ الثلاثة : ⁦good ⟹ the best · bad ⟹ the worst · far ⟹ the farthest⁩
التعبير عن التفضيل الأدنى بـ⁦the least + adjective⁩
التمييز بين المقارنة (شيئان) والتفضيل (ثلاثة فأكثر)، واختيار ⁦in⁩ أو ⁦of⁩ بعدها

🔑يفترض هذا الدرس أنّك تتقن:

الفرق بين النعت القصير والنعت الطويل بعدد المقاطع
المقارنة بالتفضيل : ⁦-er than⁩ و⁦more … than⁩
تصريف ⁦to be⁩ في المضارع والماضي

Presentation

لاحظ النصّ أوّلا. النعت ⁦cool⁩ يرد فيه مرّتين بصيغتين مختلفتين : ابحث عنهما قبل أن تقرأ القاعدة.

Food in Nepal

People eat different foods in different places. Let's take the example of Nepal. Nepal has no sea. Most people in Nepal are farmers. They grow grains, fruits, and other crops in the lowlands. The temperatures are very warm there. Rice and corn grow in terraced fields in the cooler hill regions. Potatoes and barley are the staple, or chief crops at higher elevations. Temperatures are the coolest there. The Nepalese raise goats, cattle and yaks for dairy produce. They eat meat only on special occasions. Religious rules affect which meats people in Nepal eat: Hindus, who make up more than 80 percent of the population, do not eat beef, and Muslims do not eat pork.

What does this text tell you before you read any rule?

ماذا يعلّمك هذا النصّ قبل أن تقرأ القاعدة ؟

There are three levels in one paragraph, not two: the lowlands are warm, the hill regions are cooler, and the high elevations are the coolest. The text climbs a mountain and the adjective climbs with it.
Cooler needs a second thing to be cooler than. The coolest does not: it puts one place at the top of the whole group — every region of Nepal at once.
And that is why the little word the appears. There can be several cooler places; there is only one coolest. The is the word that says “only one”.
Look at the ending too: cool ⟹ cooler ⟹ the coolest. The adjective is short, so English simply adds letters to it. It does not add a word.

⟹ Two forms, two jobs. The comparative puts one thing beside another. The superlative puts one thing above all the others. The rule below only says how to build the second one — and everything depends on the length of the adjective.

The superlative says that one thing is at the top of its group. It always begins with the, and it is built in two different ways. ① Short adjectives — one syllable (cool, fast, big, long, high), or two syllables ending in -y (easy, happy): the + adjective + -est “Temperatures are the coolest there.” · “the fastest service in London” ② Long adjectives — two syllables or more (convenient, amazing, probable, dangerous): the most + adjective “the most convenient restaurant in London” · “the most amazing invention that man has ever made” ⭐ After the superlative, English uses in for a place or a group, and of for a set: the best mark in the class, the coolest of the three regions.

Which form, for which adjective

Kind of adjective	How to build the superlative	Example
Short — one syllable: cool, fast, long, high	the + adjective + -est	Temperatures are the coolest there.
Short in -y — easy, happy, dry	the + adjective, y becomes i, + -est	It is the easiest dish to prepare.
Long — two syllables or more: convenient, amazing, probable	the most + adjective, unchanged	the most convenient restaurant in London
Irregular — good, bad, far	learn them, they follow nothing	I've got the best mark in the class.

The superlative always takes the. Short adjectives grow an ending; long adjectives take a word in front and do not change at all.

The three spelling rules, and the three irregulars

ends in **-e** — large ⟹ the largest · nice ⟹ the nicest (add -st only)ends in **-y** — easy ⟹ the easiest · happy ⟹ the happiest (y becomes i)one vowel + one consonant — big ⟹ the biggest · hot ⟹ the hottest (double the consonant)irregular — good ⟹ **the best** · bad ⟹ **the worst** · far ⟹ **the farthest**

The other end of the scale

الطرف الآخر من السلّم : كيف نقول إنّ شيئا في أسفل المجموعة ؟

Rank them

A writer makes four predictions about robots and orders them from the most probable to the least probable: 1. They will be able to invent robot cooks. 2. They may be able to make robot maids. 3. They might even invent robot mechanics. 4. They won't be able to become the rivals of man. ⟹ Now write two sentences: one that names prediction 1, and one that names prediction 3, using a superlative each time.

The answers, and the rule behind them

الأجوبة، والقاعدة التي وراءها.

Prediction 1 is the most probable of the four. Prediction 3 is the least probable of the four. Both sentences use the same adjective, probable, and neither of them changes it. Only the word in front has moved from most to least.

… the most + adjective … — the top of the group. … the least + adjective … — the bottom of the group. ⭐ the least works with every adjective, short or long, and it never changes it: the least cool, the least convenient, the least good. It is the easiest superlative in English, and pupils use it least — which is a pity, because it saves you from having to know an irregular form.

Superlatives you have already met in your reading

**the coolest** hill regions · **the fastest** service in London**the most convenient** restaurant in London · **the most amazing** invention**the best** mark in the class · **the longest** we can hope to live**the most probable** ⟺ **the least probable** · **the maximum** age

⚠️ Look at the last one: the maximum age. English also has words that are superlatives all by themselves — maximum, minimum, top, first, last. They already name an extreme — the most or the least —, so they never take -est and never take most.

⛔ Three mistakes to bury now. — not “the most coolest”, not “the most biggest”. One superlative per adjective: either the ending -est, or the word most — never both. — not “He has best mark in the class”. The superlative without the is not a superlative. ⟹ the best, the coolest, the most convenient. — not “Of my two brothers, Amine is the tallest.” Two things take a comparative: “Amine is taller than Karim.” Three or more take the superlative: “Amine is the tallest of the three.” ⚠️ And do not mix in and of: in goes with a place or a group seen as one whole (in the class, in London, in the world), of goes with a counted set (of the three, of them all).

⛔ ثلاثة أخطاء : لا تجمع ⁦most⁩ و⁦-est⁩ في كلمة واحدة · لا تُسقِط ⁦the⁩ · شيئان ⟹ مقارنة، وثلاثة فأكثر ⟹ تفضيل.

Practice

تمارين. أنجزها على كرّاسك أوّلا، ثمّ افتح التصحيح.

Exercise 1 — Put the adjective in brackets into the superlative

a. Jack's is (convenient) restaurant in London. b. Its service is (fast) in the city. c. In Nepal, the high elevations are (cool) place of all. d. She has got (good) mark in the class. e. Of the four predictions, that one is (probable) — nobody believes it.

Answers to Exercise 1

	Answer	Why
a	Jack's is the most convenient restaurant in London.	convenient is long ⟹ the most + adjective
b	Its service is the fastest in the city.	fast is short ⟹ the + adjective + -est
c	The high elevations are the coolest place of all.	cool is short; “of all” names the group
d	She has got the best mark in the class.	good is irregular ⟹ the best, and in for a group
e	That one is the least probable.	the bottom of the group ⟹ the least + adjective

Exercise 2 — Answer about yourself, in one full sentence each time

Use a superlative in every answer, and add in or of with the group you are comparing. a. Which season do you like the most? (the four seasons) b. Which subject is the easiest for you? (all your subjects) c. Which is the longest month of the year, and which is the shortest? d. Who runs the fastest in your class?

Answers to Exercise 2

Summer is the season I like the most of the four. — or: “Winter is the least pleasant season of the year for me.”
English is the easiest subject of all for me.
June has the longest days of the year, and February is the shortest month.
Ron runs the fastest in the class — he runs faster than anyone else.

⭐ Read the last answer twice. It says the same thing in two ways: “the fastest in the class” is a superlative, “faster than anyone else” is a comparative. English lets you climb to the top by either staircase — choose the one that fits your sentence.

At the BEM, the superlative is one of the most reliable questions of Mastery of language — “put the adjective in brackets in the right form”, or “complete: … (interesting) film I have ever seen”. It also earns marks in Written expression whenever you describe a place, a person or a monument. Keep three things ready: short adjective ⟹ the …-est, long adjective ⟹ the most … ; the best, the worst, the farthest learnt by heart ; and in for a group, of for a counted set. ⛔ The mistake examiners see every year: writing “the most biggest”, or dropping the.

The comparative puts two things side by side; the superlative puts one thing above all the others, and it always announces itself with the. Then only one question remains, and it is a question of length: a short adjective grows an ending — the coolest, the fastest, the biggest — and a long one takes a word in front and stays untouched — the most convenient, the most amazing. Learn the three irregulars, remember that the least never changes anything, and the whole system is yours.

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