53.1 Forming Comparative Adjectives with the Suffix 過 gwo3 (‘more … than’)

In Grammar and Vocabulary 27.4, we learned that we can put the suffix 啲 di1 (‘more’) after an adjective to form a comparative adjective. We also learned that when we use a comparative adjective as a predicative adjective, we don’t need to add the default adverb 好 hou2 or a degree word before the adjective.

We use comparative adjectives to compare two items. When using 啲 di1, we only mention one item in the sentence. If we want to mention both items within the same sentence for comparison, we can use the suffix 過 gwo3 (‘more … than’) to form a comparative adjective. We put the first item at the position of the subject and the second item after 過 gwo3. We don’t need to add the default adverb 好 hou2 or a degree word before the adjective.

If we want to add the adverb 好似 hou2 ci5 (‘seem’) and the pronoun 噉 gam2 (‘seem’), we can put 好似 hou2 ci5 before the adjective and 噉 gam2 after the second item.