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Tuesday
Mar132007

irregular italian comparatives

OK ragazzi, one last lesson on comparing things in Italian. We've seen that the usual pattern for English comparisons is hot, hotter, hottest; smart, smarter, smartest; tall, taller, tallest. But not all adjectives fit this pattern - we don't say good, gooder, goodest for an easy example. Some adjectives (and for that matter the adverb "well") have irregular comparitives, the topic of this week's lesson (and sorry it's a day late).

So Italian has a few irregular comparatives too. Here they all are in a table:

Adjective/Adverb

Comparative

Relative Superlative

Absolute Superlative

buono

più buono,

migliore

il più buono,

il migliore

buonissimo,

ottimo

cattivo

più cattivo,

peggiore

il più cattivo,

il peggiore

cattivissimo,

pessimo

grande

più grande,

maggiore

il più grande,

il maggiore

grandissimo,

massimo

piccolo

più piccolo,

minore

il più piccolo,

il minore

piccolissimo,

minimo

bene

meglio

-

benissimo, molto bene

male

peggio

-

malissimo, molto male

Do not confuse migliore / peggiore with meglio / peggio, even though both are translated as better / worse in English.

Meglio and peggio have 2 syllables as does the word “adverb”, so meglio and peggio are adverbs.

Migliore and peggiore have 3 syllables as does the word “adjective”, so migliore and peggiore are adjectives.

Lucia suona il violino meglio di me. (adverb)

I miei studenti sono i migliori della citta’. (adjective)

In other words, “migliore” means “more good” and is used with a noun.

“Meglio” means “more well” and is used with a verb.

Use the bold letters as a reminder.

And that about does it. Ora conoscete "meglio" i comparativi italiani!

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