Arabic adjectives - Comparatives and superlatives

بِسمِ اللهِ الرَّحمانِ الرَّحِيم

الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على نبينا محمد وآله وصحبه

الدرس التاسع عشر

السلام عليكم ورَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وبَركاتُه,  Alhamdulillah we have been practicing on adjectives.  The last area we want to study in adjectives is superlatives and comparatives.  ex. In english for adjective “Tall / old” we can convert it to comparative by  - “taller / older” . and superlative by - “tallest / oldest”.  

In arabic comparatives and superlatives are formed using following pattern.  

Note: contents are directly from the book “mastering arabic 2nd edition”.

Best example would be below which is superlative form of  (كبير).

I guess below hadith should be known to everyone. Can you notice the comparative adjective ?

صلاة الجماعة أفضل من صلاة الفرد بـ 27 درجة

Practice drills:  read the following.

1)

طويل ، أطول	Tall - Taller / tallest
هذا الولد طويل	this boy is tall
و لكن هذه البنت هي أطول من الولد	but this girl is taller than the boy
هي الأطول في المدرسة	she is the tallest in the school

2)

(Older - أقدم)	(old - قديم)
هذا البيت القديم	this house is old
ولكن هذا القصر أقدم من البيتِ	but this fort is older than the house
هو أقدم قصر في البلاد	this is the oldest fort in the country

3) Try to translate below

There are some important points to be noted for comparative and superlatives.

Note 1:   The comparative does not change according to whether they are describing something masculine / feminine. or dual / plural.

ex:

الطالباتُ المدرسةِ أذكي من الطلابِ المدرسةِ

The girl students of the school are more intelligent than the boy students of the school

Note 2: If the second and third letters of the adjective are the same , they are written together with shadda in comparative. and if the third root letter is (waw - و) or (ya - ي) this changes to (alif)

example:

strong	شديد
stronger	أشدَدُ
stronger	أشدَّ
little	قليل
lesser	أقلّ
sweet	حلو
sweeter	أحلى

Note 3:   خير and  شرّ  are used as meaning better and worse.   For these two there is NO comparative form.  ex.  (أخير) is wrong.

زيد خيرمن بكر	zaid is better than bakr
زينب خير من هند	zaynab is better than hind
زينب شرّ امرأة	zaynab is worst woman

And always remember …..

الصلاة خير من النوم