Swedish comparatives with -are and -ast

Okay, so now let's focus on comparing things, comparing objects, comparing people. And when we're comparing things in English, there's basically three different ways in which we do it. We have one way in which we say more or most. He is the most intelligent person I've met. She is the most humble person I've met. So you can use more or most.

Or you could say, you could add on an ending. So you can say the strongest person I've seen. Or you can use a very irregular way. So you can say bad, he's bad, but he is worse. So you're comparing the two and it's irregular, you change the whole form of the word. So let's look at all of these three examples and you'll see that in Swedish, the way that you get these versions is very similar to what we have in English.

So let's look at the first type. We have smart. Obviously in English you would say smarter, you would say harder. And if you want to say the smartest and the hardest, you add on the -est part. In Swedish, very similar. Smart also means smart, but you say smart, smart.

So for Swedish you add on a-r-e, you add on -are, -are. So to say smarter, you would say smartare, smartare.

How do you say harder in Swedish? If hard is hård, hård.

Harder would be hårdare, hårdare.

And if you want to say smartest, you would say smartast, smartast. You add on -ast, smartast. So how would you say hardest in Swedish?

Hårdast. Hårdast.

And then we have the second type where you have more or most. So in English we can't say intelligenter, he is more intelligenter, you can't say that. You have to say he is more intelligent than I, or he is more intelligent than him, and so forth.

And if you want to say the most, you can't say intelligentest, instead you have to say most intelligent. So same thing with interesting, more interesting, most interesting. In Swedish you have the same thing, and notice you have the same words spelled the same way, so that's why Swedish sometimes makes it easy for English speakers.

So intelligent, you would say intelligent. Intelligent.

And for interesting, you would say intressant. So how would you say more intelligent?

Using more, mer in Swedish.

Mer intelligent. Most intelligent, you say mest intelligent. Mest means most. How do you say more interesting in Swedish?

Mer intressant. What about most interesting?

Mest intressant. And to of course compare, we've had this before, you use än. So mer intressant än, and then you can continue the sentence, more interesting than. So how did you say to be in Swedish?

Att vara. If you want to say I am smarter than Alex, how would you say that? I'm smarter than Alex.

Jag är smartare... än Alex. She is smart, but you are the smartest. So we're talking about one person, she is smart, but you are the smartest. So how did you say 'but' in Swedish?

Men. Men. So how do you say the whole sentence now? She is smart, but you are the smartest.

Hon är smart, men du är smartast. Hon är smart, men du är smartast.

So what was the word for 'why' in Swedish?

Varför.

So how do you say 'why is she more intelligent than Alex'?

Varför är hon mer intelligent än Alex? Varför är hon mer intelligent än Alex?

So 'material' is material. Material. Spelled the same way. So how do you say 'it is the hardest material in the world'?

Det är det hårdaste materialet i världen. And you may have said, if you remember that 'in' is i and of course 'the world' is världen. But you may ask yourself is why is it det hårdaste? We didn't say det är hårdaste materialet.

So here we have put the det as 'the'. Det är det hårdaste materialet.

So materialet is 'the material'. However, you need for this sentence, you need det. Det är det hårdaste materialet i världen. And we can talk more about that later on.