Chapter 9 - Comparatives and Superlatives

You don't make a superlative statement with "ein" words. Since you're talking about a specific thing, you make a superlative statement with:

"der" words

Most adjectives that have an "e" or "i" in the stem form the comparative by adding:

-er this is just like "bigger" or "smaller" in English

So if you want to say something is your favorite, use __________ instead.

Lieblings- For example, "my favorite sport is baseball" is "Mein Lieblingssport ist Baseball."

When you put a comparative adjective before a noun:

add the -er to show the comparative (kalt vs. kälter) and then add one of the suffixes based on gender and case that we covered in the last section. Dieser kältere Tagen. - These colder days.

"Liebst" is the supperlative of "gern." However, it is not used as an:

adjective

Superlative statements can come in the form of:

adjective followed by noun "fastest car" or the noun is adjective "the car is the fastest"

To compare two or more people or things, Germans use the comparative form of:

adjectives or adverbs

To express inequality, German speakers us the term:

als it means "than" - use it to compare two things Ich bin schneller als du! - I am faster than you!

There are some irregular adjectives and adverbs that don't follow the above-mentioned rules:

no different than "good" and "better" in English "gut" becomes "besser" "hoch" becomes "höher" "viel" becomes "mehr" "gern" becomes "lieber"

To make a superlative in the form of "adjective followed by noun":

root word + st + conjugated (gender/case specific) ending protip: when you're using this form, the -der word comes first, so just borrow the same suffix For example: if i wanted to say something superlative about "das Auto" I know that the gender/case specific ending will have to be neuter/nominative because "das" is neuter/nominative. Therefore, "Das schnellste Auto" is "the fastest car."

If the adjective has an umlautable verb in the stem:

umlaut it and ad -er to the end to form the comparative kalt, kälter lang, länger

To make a superlative in the form of "the noun is the adjectivest" or "the noun is the most adjective":

use am and the adjective +st + en For example, if I wanted to say something about "der Hund" I can forget about all the gender-based ending stuff and know that I'll need to put an -en at the end. Therefore, "Der Hund ist am schnellsten"