Portuguese Adjectives – Comparing things using adjectives

Portuguese adjectives – How to compare things in Portuguese

Hello and welcome to our Portuguese Basic Tips called Portuguese adjectives

On today’s episode we are going to speak about Portuguese adjectives. I will give you a few tips about  how to compare things in Portuguese by using adjectives.

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Adjectives are words we use to qualify the noun; we use them to modify it, right? So, you can say in Portuguese “Esta é uma casa” (This is a house). The word “casa” is a noun in this case. But you can also say “Esta é uma bela casa” (This is a beautiful house). Note that in this second example, I’m talking about a quality of that house.

What if I want to compare those qualities in Portuguese? How can I do that?

For example, how can I say in Portuguese “This house is prettier than the other one”?

Well, in this case you should say “Esta casa é mais bonita do que a outra”.

Its purpose is to compare two or more things or two or more people.

In Portuguese we have a few rules to do that. Let’s take some examples:

Comparativo de igualdade (Comparative of equality)

• This house is as beautiful as the other one.
• Esta casa é tão bonita quanto a outra.

Note that in English, in this case we use “as… as”; In Portuguese we use “tão … quanto”

Comparativo de Inferioridade (Comparative of Inferiority)

• This house is less beautiful than the other one.
• Esta casa é menos bonita do que a outra.

Note that in this case, instead of using “less …than”, we use “menos … do que”  or “menos …que”.

Comparativo de Superioridade (Comparative of superiority)

• This house is prettier than the other one.

Well, as you already know, in this case you should say

• Esta casa é mais bonita do que a outra.

Note that in Portuguese we use “mais …do que”, instead of using “prettier” in this case.

Pretty simple, isn’t it? Ok, but I need to be straight with you. We also have a few cases that we can’t apply those rules. If you want to use the adjectives “bom” (good), “mau” (bad), “grande” (big) and “pequeno” (small) – you’ll necessarily have to change these ways to “melhor” (better), “pior” (worse), “maior” (bigger)  and menor (smaller).

For instance:

• This house is better than the other one
• Esta casa é melhor do que a outra
• This house is worse than the other one
• Esta casa é pior do que a outra
• This house is bigger than the other one
• Esta casa é maior do que a outra
• This house is smaller than the other one
• Esta casa é menor do que a outra

Note that in those cases you can’t use, for instance “Esta casa é mais grande do que a outra” or  “Esta casa é mais boa do que a outra”.  Unless you were comparing the same object, it would be wrong!

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Listen to our last episode about  days of the week and months of the year in Portuguese

Read this article (only in Portuguese) about adjectives

That’s enough for today.

I hope you like it!

Marcos Sales

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