If you’ve been studying English for a while, I’m sure you remember learning basic comparatives and superlatives and seeing expressions like ‘bigger than’, ‘more expensive’ and ‘the best/worst’ in your coursebook.

But native speakers don’t stop there!
At a more advanced level, if we want to say that something is better, we might say, ‘significantly better’, ‘far more interesting’, a great deal better’ or ‘by far the best’.

These words are called modifiers because they change the strength of the comparison, and in this episode you’ll learn some common advanced modifiers and how to use them in English.

Voice message from Valentina from Romania
Binge listening
Go quicker or go more quickly – what’s the difference?

Go quicker is more informal and conversational
Go more quickly is a bit more formal and more common in written English
This car goes quicker than the other one – tends to refer more to a capacity
This car is going more quickly than the other one – the adverb (quickly) describes the verb/action
A similar example is drive safe and drive safely

Advanced modifiers for comparatives and superlatives

Comparative adjectives: https://inglespodcast.com/453
Superlative adjectives: https://inglespodcast.com/454

significantly (common in business, statistics and academic writing)
Sales increased significantly more (= much more) than expected.
Due to global warming, many countries experienced significantly higher temperatures this year.

a great deal (by a large amount)
A great deal is more formal than ‘a lot’
She’s a great deal happier (= much happier) now that she’s passed the exam.
The cost of living is a great deal higher than it was ten years ago.

by far (much more, much better)
That’s by far the funniest episode of this series.
It was by far the biggest mistake of his entire life.

nowhere near (not even close)
Those biscuits are nowhere near as expensive as (= much less expensive than) these.
The other podcast is nowhere near as good as ours.

just as (equally)
The lunch you made was just as tasty as the breakfast.
Whisky is usually just as strong as vodka or gin.

Most comparative modifiers come immediately before the comparative.
The new flat is a great deal bigger.
House prices are significantly higher

Some other advanced modifiers

way (more common in informal spoken English)
Spain played way (= much) better than Argentina.
I’m way too busy to meet for coffee.

Similar to significantly: considerably, substantially, remarkably, dramatically, drastically, markedly, appreciably
Our new car is considerably more economical.
Petrol and gas prices have been substantially higher this year.
The new Wimbledon champion played remarkably well under pressure.
House prices have risen dramatically.
We need to drastically alter our marketing strategy.
The quality has improved markedly.
The journey was appreciably shorter.

Discussion – compare these items:
England and Ireland
White chocolate, milk chocolate and dark chocolate
Tea, beer and coffee
Doctors and nurses
Craig and Reza…

…and now it’s your turn to practise your English. Why not send us a message and practice using some of these advanced modifiers?
Send us a voice message. https://www.speakpipe.com/inglespodcast
Send us an email with a comment or question to craig@inglespodcast.com or belfastreza@gmail.com

If you’re a Spanish speaker and you want to improve your English with free and paid resources, visit the mansioningles website at mansioningles.com and for paid products you can browse the online store at https://store.mansioningles.net/

If you would like a full transcription of this podcast you might consider joining our Patreon program. As a Patreon member, you’ll receive the full transcription by email every week so that you can read every word that we say and you’ll get a monthly invitation to join Craig for an informal chat on Zoom to practise your speaking. https://www.patreon.com/inglespodcast

Welcome to our new Patreon supporters who have joined us this month:
Aleksandra Jurczak

In next week’s episode: Advanced English verb tense review

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The music in this podcast is by Pitx. The track is called ‘See You Later’