Superlatives

You just finished doing comparatives. Now you’re going to do superlatives. In English, we have what we call the positive form, tall gorgeous the comparative form, taller more gorgeous and the superlative form.tallest most gorgeous Spanish doesn’t have that, exactly, but if you just think of “más” as meaning both “more” AND “most,” both the comparative and superlative are very similar to English.

The comparative is for when you’re talking about two people or things: Addison is more beautiful than Meredith. Addison es más hermosa que Meredith. The superlative is for when you’re talking about three or more people or things: Addison is the most beautiful of all. Addison es la más hermosa de todas.

As you can see, if you use “most” rather than “-est” (which, like “-er,” doesn’t exist in Spanish), the word order is identical to English: Addison is the most beautiful of all. Addison es la más hermosa de todas. However, you need to note that if you put a noun in the superlative expression, it will come BEFORE “más + adjective.” Addison is the most beautiful woman of all. Addison es la mujer más hermosa de todas. But that should be no surprise, since, as you learned in chapter 2, adjectives normally come after the noun they describe: noun adjective Addison es una mujer hermosa.

Click here to go to a brief practice exercise. When you’re done with the first one (there’s only one problem per page), click on the arrow to go to the next. There are five problems total.here

Remember mejor, peor, mayor, menor? Since they mean better, worse, older, younger, they also mean best, worst, oldest, youngest. Juan es el mejor estudiante de la clase. Juan is the best student in the class. Juan es el peor estudiante de la clase. Juan is the worst student in the class. Juan es el mayor estudiante de la clase. Juan is the oldest student in the class. Juan es el menor estudiante de la clase. Juan is the youngest student in the class.