Russian · Chapter 8 · Lesson 4 · Grammar primer

Comparative adjectives

Prescribed by the Edexcel specification.

The short version

Most comparatives just add -ee

Drop the ending off a Russian adjective and add -ee and you have the comparative, invariable whatever the gender or case: bystryy (fast) becomes bystree (faster). It never sits directly in front of a noun though; for that you need bolee plus the long adjective instead.

Etot poyezd bystree.

This train is faster.

Luchshiy is not the same word as luchshe

Luchshe (better) never changes and sits after the thing it describes. Luchshiy (best, better) is a full adjective that declines like khoroshiy and sits in front of the noun, exactly like starshiy (elder) and mladshiy (younger) for talking about siblings.

On moy starshiy brat.

He is my elder brother.

That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.

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One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end. There are 19 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.

Lesson 4 of 19 in this chapter

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