As soon as you start building richer sentences in Spanish, comparatives become an essential tool.

They help you express your ideas more precisely, draw contrasts, soften opinions, and describe the world around you in a more nuanced way. They may look like small structures, but they dramatically expand what you can say — and how you can say it.

This guide walks you through everything you need to use comparatives with confidence: how they’re formed, how the structure changes depending on what follows, and which irregular patterns you should learn from the start. Every point is explained clearly and in an easy, step-by-step way.

1. What comparatives are and when to use them

Comparatives let you compare two things — people, objects, situations, quantities, behaviours, and so on.
They’re essential for expressing differences, similarities, or degrees of superiority/inferiority.

In Spanish, you can compare:

• adjectives

– El edificio es más alto que la casa.

• nouns

– Mi casa tiene más habitaciones que la tuya.

• adverbs

– Lucía corre tan rápido como Marta.

• verbs

– Yo estudio más que tú.

Each type follows its own logic — and that’s exactly what we’ll break down next.

2. Comparatives with adjectives

When you’re comparing qualities — alto, caro, interesante, antiguo, etc. — there are three main categories: superiority, inferiority, and equality.

a) Comparative of superiority: más + adjective + que

This is the most intuitive and most commonly used pattern.

– Estos libros son más antiguos que ésos.

You can also add intensifiers like un poco, bastante, mucho to make the comparison more precise:

– Tus amigas son un poco más antipáticas que las mías.

b) Comparative of inferiority: menos + adjective + que

Same structure, but expressing the opposite meaning.

– El avión es menos lento que los otros transportes.

c) Comparative of equality: tan + adjective + como

Used when two things share the same degree of a quality.

– Es tan alto como su hermano.

A useful alternative: igual de + adjective + que

– Esto es igual de caro que el que tengo en casa.

3. Irregular comparatives with adjectives

Some adjectives have completely irregular comparative forms. They’re among the most frequent in the language, so they’re worth memorizing early.

• bueno → mejor

– Ese reloj es mejor que éste.

• malo → peor

– Estas lavadoras son peores que ésas.

• grande → mayor (age or importance)

– Mi hijo es mayor que el tuyo.

• pequeño → menor (age or importance)

– Alicia es menor que su hermana Lucía.

Important note: mayor and menor can also behave like regular comparatives (más grande, más pequeño) when the context is not about age or importance.

4. Comparatives with nouns: comparing amounts

When the comparison involves a noun (money, hours, rooms, problems…), the structure changes slightly.

a) Superiority: más + noun + que

– ¿Alguien tiene más suerte que tú?

b) Inferiority: menos + noun + que

– En el frigorífico hay menos cervezas que ayer.

c) Equality: tanto/tanta/tantos/tantas + noun + como

Agreement with the noun is essential:

– Tengo tantos exámenes aprobados como tú.

When the quantity is exactly the same, you can also use:

• la misma cantidad de + noun + que
• el mismo número de + noun + que

– Necesitamos la misma cantidad de vasos que de platos.

5. Comparatives with adverbs

Adverbs follow a very similar logic to adjectives: superiority, inferiority, or equality.

a) Superiority: más + adverb + que

– Ana habla más claramente que Pedro.

b) Inferiority: menos + adverb + que

– Lucía trabaja menos eficientemente que Marta.

c) Equality: tan + adverb + como

– Mi madre cocina tan bien como mi padre.

Irregular adverbs

Some adverbs have irregular comparative forms:

• bien → mejor 

– Luis canta mejor que Jaime. 

• mal → peor 

– Juan cocina peor que Antonio.

6. Comparatives with verbs

When comparing how much or how often an action is performed, the structure is built directly around the verb.

a) Superiority: verb + más + que

– Yo estudio más que tú.

b) Inferiority: verb + menos + que

– Tú trabajas menos que yo.

c) Equality: verb + tanto como

– Luis come tanto como Felipe.

These structures are extremely useful when talking about habits, lifestyle, study patterns, work routines, and everyday activities.

7. Two common special cases

Spanish often uses two additional, very frequent comparative constructions.

a) Quantitative comparatives with de

Use de:

• when the comparison refers to a specific quantity:

– En casa tengo más de 500 revistas de decoración.

• when there is a clause introduced by lo que:

– El examen fue más fácil de lo que pensábamos.

b) Omitting the second part of the comparison

If the context makes the second element clear, it can be dropped entirely:

– Éste es más bonito. (…que el otro)

8. How to really learn Spanish comparatives

Understanding the rules is a great start, but the real progress happens when you begin to use these structures spontaneously — without having to think about them every time.

The best way to make them automatic is to see them in real sentences, hear them, repeat them, and use them yourself. For that reason, checking the full grammar sheet on comparatives can be extremely helpful: it gathers all the forms in one place, covers special cases, and gives you plenty of extra examples.

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