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Unit 1: English In A Minute
Give us a minute and we'll teach you English

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Session 35

Welcome to English In A Minute. Give us a minute and we'll give you a hot tip about English. Grammar, vocabulary... there's so much to learn! And all taught by your favourite BBC Learning English staff!

ክፍለ-ስራሓት ናይዚ ምዕራፍ

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ድምር ነጥቢ ናይዚ ክፍለ-ስራሓት 35

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    Activity 1
  1. Activity 1

Activity 1

The... the... comparatives

Do you have a minute to spare to learn some English? Sam's going to show you the skill of making the.. the.. comparatives! Give us 60 seconds and we'll give you the English!

ነቲ ቪድዮ ብምዕዛብ ነቲ ስራሕ ዕመምዎ

ነቲ ቅዳሕ ጽሑፍ ኣርእይዎ ነቲ ቅዳሕ ጽሑፍ ሕብእዎ

Sam
Hello, I'm Sam from BBC Learning English. And today, I have a question for you.

If you study more, do you learn more?

You could answer this question in two different ways. One: Yes! If I study more, I learn more. Or, two: Yes! The more I study, the more I learn.

The meaning is the same. One thing depends on another. But, did you notice? We change the sentence structure. Let's have a look together.

  • Take 'if' away.
  • Add 'the' to the beginning of both parts of the sentence.
  • Rearrange the order of the words so that the comparatives 'more' - two times here - are after 'the'.

And you get:
The more I study with BBC Learning English, the more I learn.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Did you like that? Why not try these?

EIAM Teaser 6mingram_li_13_comparatives_superlatives.jpg TGG Teaser______________________________________________________________________________________________________

The... the... comparatives

We can use the... the... comparative structures to say that one thing depends on another, or that things change together. 

  • The more I study, the more I learn.
  • The faster you go, the quicker you will arrive.
  • The more he talks, the less I want to listen.

Form
We use the + comparative + subject + verb for each half of the expression. Don't forget the comma in between the two clauses.

  • The older I become, the happier I am.
  • The more expensive the gift, the greater the gratitude, I say.

Comparatives
Be careful when using the comparative - do not forget that there are three types of comparatives:

  • Type 1: 'ER' - The faster you go, the quicker you will arrive.
  • Type 2: 'more + adjective' - The morebeautiful you are, the morehandsome he will need to be.
  • Type 3: 'irregular' - The better the movie, the worse the reviews.

For more information about comparatives, click on a picture link above.

Using a conditional
You can make a the... the... comparative from conditionals which link things comparatively:

If I study more, I learn more.

  1. Remove the if
  2. Add the to the beginning of both parts of the sentence.
  3. Rearrange the order of the words so that the comparatives 'more' are after 'the'

The more I study, the more I learn.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

To do

Try our quiz to see how well you've learned today's language. 

English In A Minute Quiz

3 Questions

Test your understanding of this lesson with our quiz!

ኣገናዕ፡ ፈተናኹም ዛዚምኩም
Excellent!Great job!ሕማቕ ዕድል!ዘመዝገብኩምዎ ነጥቢ ...:
x / y

Downloads

You can download a PDF document for this episode here.

More

We hope you enjoyed English in a Minute. You can find more episodes here. 

መራገፊ ማእከል

ትሕዝቶ ናይ ሓድሽ ትምህርቲ