Beginner #18 - Comparing adjectives

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Anders: Är du verkligen säker?
Are you really sure?
Markus: Ja, Tyskland är större än Sverige.
Yes, Germany is larger than Sweden.
Anders: Det stämmer inte. Sverige är mycket längre än Tyskland.
That's not right. Sweden is a lot longer than Germany.
Markus: Tyskland är bredare.
Germany is wider.
Anders: Ja, men inte mycket.
Yes, but not much.
Markus: Jag kollar på internet. Okej, du vinner. Du vet mest. Du är smartast av oss. Kom, jag bjuder på dricka.
I'll check on the internet. Alright, you win. You know the most. You are the most clever of us. Come, I'll buy you a beverage.
  
bjuda
pay, ask
  
bred
wide
  
lång
long, tall
  
smart
clever
  
Tyskland
Germany
  
vinna
win

For more on adjectives, check out beginner lesson #9 and our grammar post on adjectives.

Comparison

Swedish adjectives work like in English and other Germanic languages. We have comparative and superlative. On this site we’ll call them stage 1 and stage 2 to make it easier for you. The basic form is called positive. Adjectives get the ending -are in the first stage and -ast in the second stage.

Basic form Stage 1 Stage 2
– -are -ast
fin finare finast
pretty prettier the prettiest

Words already ending on -el, -er and -en only get -re and -st when compared:

Basic form Stage 1 Stage 2
enkel enklare enklast
vacker vackrare vackrast
vuxen vuxnare vuxnast

Some adjectives change their stem vowel: u > y, o > ö and å > ä.

Basic form Stage 1 Stage 2
– -re -st
ung yngre yngst
stor större störst
lång längre längst

There are of course some adjectives that are totally irregular. They change their whole stem in stage 1 and stage 2.

Basic form Stage 1 Stage 2
bra bättre bäst
gammal äldre äldst
liten mindre minst
dålig* sämre sämst
dålig* värre värst
mycket mer mest
*Dålig is compared differently depending on the specific meaning of the word.

Jag mår dåligt. Jag mår sämre än igår.
I’m not feeling well. I feel worse than yesterday.

Igår var en dålig dag. Värre än idag.
Yesterday was a bad day. Worse than today.

Most Swedish adjectives are compared by adding endings to them but some are compared by using mer and mest, so it’s not completely different from English. This is for instance true for all words ending on -isk:

Basic form Stage 1 Stage 2
euforisk mer euforisk mest euforisk
sympatisk mer sympatisk mest sympatisk

Other than this, there are no real rules for which adjectives are compared in the first or second way. You should note, however, that most long adjectives seem to use the second way like spännande (mer spännande – mest spännande) and intressant (mer intressant – mest intressant). In addition this is true for concatenated words meningslös (mer meningslös – mest meningslös). Generally you’ll have to learn which is the most commonly used way.

If you compare two things, like two countries, we use the Swedish conjunction än (than).
Example: Tyskland är mindre än Sverige. Germany is smaller than Sweden.

Europäiska länder / European countries

Albanien Albania Montenegro Montenegro
Andorra Andorra Nederländerna The Netherlands
Belgien Belgium Norge Norway
Bosnien och Hercegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina Polen Poland
Bulgarien Bulgaria Portugal Portugal
Danmark Denmark Rumänien Romania
Estland Estonia Ryssland Russia
Finland Finland San Marino San Marino
Frankrike France Schweiz Swizzerland
Grekland Greece Serbien Serbia
Island Iceland Slovakien Slovakia
Irland Ireland Slovenien Slovenia
Italien Italy Spanien Spain
Kroatien Croatia Storbritannien Great Britain
Lettland Latvia Sverige Sweden
Liechtenstein Liechtenstein Tjeckien Czech Republic
Litauen Lithuania Tyskland Germany
Luxemburg Luxembourg Ukraina Ukraine
Makedonien Macedonia Ungern Hungary
Malta Malta Vatikanstaten The Vatican
Moldavien Moldova Vitryssland Belarus
Monaco Monaco Österrike Austria