Grade 4 Let’s Talk Comparison of Adverbs in the English Language

An adverb is a word used to describe an action. Take a look at the animals below?

Can you describe how they are moving? And how they compare with the others?

Well, the panda moves slowly; the tortoise moves more slowly than the panda while the snail moves the most slowly.

There are three degrees of comparison in adverbs – the positive, comparative and superlative.

The positive is used to describe an action, the comparative is used to compare one action to another while the superlative form is used to compare one action to two or more actions.

Adverbs that end in –ly or have three or more syllables form their comparative by adding more and superlative by adding most.

POSITIVE	COMPARATIVE	SUPERLATIVE
Sweetly	More sweetly	Most sweetly
Freely	More freely	Most freely
Angrily	More angrily	Most angrily
Heavily	More heavily	Most heavily
Gladly	More gladly	Most gladly
Quietly	More quietly	Most quietly
Brightly	More brightly	Most brightly

For some single syllable adverbs, we add –er to form their comparative and –est to form their superlative form.

POSITIVE	COMPARATIVE	SUPERLATIVE
Late	Later	Latest
Fast	Faster	Fastest
Long	Longer	Longest

Some adverbs are irregular and form their comparative and superlative in a special way.

POSITIVE	COMPARATIVE	SUPERLATIVE
Well	Better	Best
Badly	Worse	Worst
Much	More	Most
Little	Less	Least

Now that you have learnt about the comparison of adverbs, let’s attempt a quick question.

Fill in the gap with the correct answer
My mother poured __ salt than she was asked to.
A. more
B. much
C. most

Type in your answer in the comment box below. Let’s see how many people can it right. Want to learn some more? Gradely CatchUp! has got you covered.

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