25 When You Compare Things (1)

Did you know that every second you have to decide which way you have to go? In this case, you will compare which is the worst, the normal, and the best way. But, I will not discuss further about this philosophical thing here, I concern rather on the three categories of adjectives and adverbs. More specifically, we will talk about the degrees of comparison of the adjectives and adverbs in terms of what so-called the comparative and superlative. As far as the English language concern, generally we add -er to the adjective or adverb for the comparatives and -est for the superlatives, except for words longer than two syllables. Take, for example, the adjective clever. Its comparative is cleverer and its superlative is the cleverest. There are some change of form for certain words, but I will not delve into this exception.
What we are concerned about is the case related to words having more than 2 syllables. In this case, we add more and the most for their comparative and superlative, respectively. For example, the word expensive becomes more expensive (comparative) and the most expensive (superlative). This specific case applies also in Indonesian language in that the word lebih (meaning more) is used for the comparative and paling or ter for the superlative, and this rule applies for all words ignoring the number of syllables. Let us take some examples of adjectives and adverbs with their comparatives and superlatives.

Clever     pintar
Cleverer    lebih pintar
Cleverest   paling pintar or terpintar

John is clever. Tom is cleverer than John. But Jerry is the cleverest of all.
John pintar. Tom lebih pintar daripada John. Tapi Jerry paling pintar dari semuanya.

Rapidly       cepat
More rapidly    lebih cepat
The most rapidly    paling cepat or tercepat

John runs rapidly. Tom runs more rapidly than John. But Jerry runs the most rapidly of all.
John lari cepat. Tom lari lebih cepat daripada John. Tapi Jerry lari paling cepat dari semuanya.

Can you do the following examples using the above rule? I hope so.

Rajin (diligent)
Malas (lazy)
Murah (cheap)
Gelap (dark)
Terang (bright)
Bersih (clean)
Kotor (dirty)
Berharga (valuable)
Fasih (fluently)

I also hope that this Indonesian simple rule for degree of comparison will help you increase your understanding.

Regards,

Ika