Esperanto Comparisons: pli, plej, ol and kiel, and What mal- Does to Them

The short version

Put pli in front of an adjective for the comparative and plej for the superlative, and neither the adjective nor anything else changes shape: granda, pli granda, la plej granda. Than is ol, and it only ever appears after pli, malpli or plej-style comparison: li estas pli alta ol mi. For equality use tiel ... kiel (as tall as) or tiom ... kiom for amounts, and never mix the pairs - pli granda kiel is the single commonest mistake in the whole area. Mal- gives you the other direction twice over: malpli granda (less big) and pli malgranda (smaller) both exist and are not quite the same claim. There is no separate absolute superlative, so very beautiful is tre bela or belega, not plej bela, which always means the most beautiful of some set. Finally, ju pli ... des pli builds the more ... the more, and the accusative after ol quietly settles who did what: li amas min pli ol vi means more than you love me, li amas min pli ol vin means more than he loves you.

English makes you choose. Bigger or more big? Happier or more happy? Good, better, best, which share nothing with each other and have to be memorised as three separate words. Then it uses most for two unrelated jobs and lets context sort it out.

Esperanto puts one word in front and stops.

pli and plej

Esperanto	English
	big
	bigger
	the biggest
	good
	better
	the best

The adjective never changes. There is no -er competing with more, no list of which words take which, and no irregular trio. , , is the whole of it.

Adverbs work identically: , , .

ol is than, and it has one job

Li estas alta mi. - He is taller than me.
Ĉi tiu libro estas interesa tiu. - This book is less interesting than that one.

appears after or , and nowhere else. It never means as.

The superlative names its group with or :

Ŝi estas la infanoj. - She is the youngest of the children.

With adjectives, use . With adverbs, normally leave it off, because there is no noun for it to attach to: . Usage here is not perfectly uniform and you will meet in print, but the bare form is the safer default and reads better.

tiel ... kiel: saying they match

For equality, the pair is ... :

Ŝi estas forta sia patro. - She is as strong as her father.
Mi laboras rapide li. - I work as fast as he does.

For amounts rather than degrees, use ... , which is the same pair from the amount row of the correlative table:

Mi havas libroj vi. - I have as many books as you.

... covers the same as: .

The mistake to inoculate yourself against

Never ... .

German, Dutch and a few other languages let the same word do than and as, and their speakers produce constantly. It is wrong, and unlike a missing -n it actively confuses, because has just announced equality in a sentence about difference.

The pairing is fixed and worth drilling until it is reflex:

Comparison	Word for more/less	Word for than/as
inequality	,
equality
amount

What mal- does here

- reverses any root, and comparison gives it two places to sit. Both are legal, and they are not saying quite the same thing.

Form	Literally	The claim
	less big	ranks it lower on bigness
	more small	asserts smallness
	less good	still possibly good, just not as good
	worse	commits you to it being bad

With the difference is academic. With it is real: is the diplomatic one and is the blunt one, and choosing between them is a genuine choice a writer makes.

is the least of a group: , the least important matter. In practice a gets used more often, and both are correct.

There is no absolute superlative, and that catches people

English most does two different jobs. The most beautiful house on the street ranks it against the others. A most agreeable evening just means very.

only does the first. always means the most beautiful of some set, so translating a most agreeable evening with produces a sentence claiming a comparison you never made.

For intensity, use or the -- suffix:

- very beautiful
- gorgeous, stunning
, - further still

, , and are all in your vocabulary already, and every one of them is doing the job cannot.

ju pli ... des pli

The correlated comparison. and exist only for this construction and never appear alone:

mi lernas, mi komprenas. - The more I learn, the more I understand.
longa la vojo, laca la ĉevalo. - The longer the road, the more tired the horse.

... and any other combination works exactly as you would expect.

The trick that only an accusative language gets

This is small and rather lovely.

Li amas min pli ol . - He loves me more than you love me.
Li amas min pli ol . - He loves me more than he loves you.

English cannot do this without spelling out the whole second clause, which is why he loves me more than you is permanently ambiguous. Esperanto marks the second element for case and the ambiguity evaporates. The accusative article covers why -n is there; this is one of the places it earns its keep in a single letter.

What to take away

and in front, adjective unchanged, no irregulars.
after /; after ; after . Never cross them.
ranks, asserts. With the difference matters.
is a ranking. For very, use or --.
... for the more, the more.
Put -n on the thing after when it is an object, and say in one letter what English needs a clause for.

Practise: test yourself

Fill in the blank

0/5

Fill in pli, plej, malpli or malplej.

Li estas alta ol mi. (taller) (More.)
Ŝi estas la bona amiko. (the best) (Most.)
Ĉi tiu libro estas interesa ol tiu. (less interesting) (The opposite of pli.)
Tio estas la grava afero. (the least important) (The opposite of plej.)
Mi havas da mono ol vi. (more money) (Quantities take da.)

Pick the right one

0/5

Ol or kiel?

Li estas pli forta mi.
Ŝi estas tiel juna vi.
La ĉambro estas malpli granda la domo.
Mi laboras tiel rapide li.
Nenio estas pli grava la vero.

Translation drill

0/5

Translate into Esperanto.

My brother is older than me.
This is the most beautiful house.
She is as strong as her father.
Esperanto is easier than French.
I have less time than you.

Mark the pattern

0/4

Does the sentence compare two things (inequality) or say they match (equality)?

inequality | equality

Li kuras pli rapide ol mi.
Which one is it?
Ŝi estas tiel bela kiel sia patrino.
Which one is it?
Mi havas tiom da libroj kiom vi.
Which one is it?
Tiu ĉevalo estas malpli forta ol la alia.
Which one is it?

Frequently asked questions

How do you make the comparative and superlative in Esperanto?

Put pli before the word for more, plej for most. Nothing else changes: granda (big), pli granda (bigger), la plej granda (the biggest). Esperanto has no good/better/best irregularity, no -er and -est endings competing with more and most, and no rule about which adjectives take which. Bona, pli bona, la plej bona. The same two words work in front of adverbs too: rapide, pli rapide, plej rapide.

When do you use ol and when kiel in Esperanto?

Ol means than and follows a comparison of inequality: li estas pli alta ol mi, she is taller than me. Kiel means as and follows tiel in a comparison of equality: li estas tiel alta kiel mi, he is as tall as me. Speakers of German and some other languages reach for kiel after pli, producing pli alta kiel, which is wrong in Esperanto and jars badly. The pairing is fixed: pli and malpli take ol, tiel and tiom take kiel and kiom.

What is the difference between malpli granda and pli malgranda?

Malpli granda is less big and pli malgranda is smaller, and although they usually describe the same physical fact they make slightly different claims. Malpli bona means less good, which leaves room for the thing still being decent; pli malbona means worse, which commits you to it being bad. In practice pli malgranda and pli malbona are the more natural everyday choices, while malpli is what you want when you are being careful about degree rather than about the quality itself.

Does Esperanto use la with the superlative?

With adjectives, yes: la plej bela domo. With adverbs, normally not: li kuras plej rapide, not la plej rapide, because there is no noun for la to attach to. The group being compared is introduced with el or inter: la plej granda el la infanoj, the biggest of the children. Usage on the adverbial la is not entirely uniform and you will meet both, but leaving it off is the safer default.

How do you say very rather than most in Esperanto?

Use tre, or the suffix -eg-. Plej always means the most of some group, so plej bela is the most beautiful one there, never simply very beautiful. If you mean the intensity and not the ranking, say tre bela or belega. Ege and treege push it further still. This is a genuine trap because English uses most for both jobs, as in a most agreeable evening, and translating that with plej produces a sentence that means something else entirely.