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As we already know, we use comparatives in English to communicate a difference between two people or things. For example,
 

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~ John is older than Steven.
~ Sitges is smaller than Barcelona

 
The sentences above show a difference but we don’t know how important the difference is. If we want to say that the difference is big, we can use words like “much”, “far” or “a lot” before the comparative. For example,

~ John is 52 and Steven is 26. John is much older than Steven.
~ Barcelona is far bigger than Vic.
~ Steven Spielberg’s new film is a lot better than his last one.

 
If we want to say that the difference is small, we can use words such as “a little”, “a bit” or “slightly”. For example,

~ This mobile phone is slightly more expensive than that one but it has a little more battery life.
~ I’ll take a bit longer than him to finish the work.

 
Finally, if we want to emphasize a superlative, we can use the expression “by far” and say, for example,

~ The iPhone is by far the most popular mobile on the market.
~ She is by far the best student in the class.

 
Now, you should be much better at communicating big and small differences in comparatives and if you’re slightly unsure when to use them, try our exercises in the blog test!
 
J. Mitchell
 

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