Comparative Grammar

Hi again we’ll come back in this lecture. We’re going to be focusing on comparative grammar. Of course it’s very important in part one to make comparisons. And so this lecture will be looking at how to use comparative language to give comparisons in a variety of different ways. So let’s think about this in a bit more detail in comparative graphs in particular but also engrossed with the trend of maps and processes. And your overview will need to introduce comparisons. You detail paragraphs may also include comparisons. So it’s vital to have a variety of different options for discussing these differences because we’re going to continue to discuss them again and again and again. So this lecture will look at three different ways of comparing data negative comparatives with adjectives negative comparatives with nouns and numerical comparatives. Let’s start with numerical comparatives using adjectives. Australia is bigger than the United Kingdom. Choklit is more popular than ice cream. Trains are more expensive than buses. I would hope that you already know how to use comparatives in this way. They’re not too complicated they’re regular comparatives and these are OK. They are important to include in your response but you should also try to include negative comparatives to demonstrate your range in this area to offer comparisons in a different form. For example the United Kingdom is not as big as Australia. Ice cream is not as popular as chocolate. Buses are not as expensive as trains save you can create these forms. Looking at the following information. So basically the form here is simply not close as. Plus the base form of the adjective Plus is so first of all temperature then speed and then price. So think about an appropriate adjective you can use to describe each of these things and then see if you can create a sentence using the not Plus as Plus adjective Plus as negative comparative structure to talk about and compare these pieces of information and when you’ve done the press play and we’ll have a look at the answers. So temperature Stockholm is not as cold as Helsinki speed. Yohan Blake is not as fast as you say in boat and price. The average house in 2000 was not as expensive as the average House in 2016. Now let’s think about degree of difference in the same way that we use much and far and slightly to describe the degree of difference with regular comparatives like he is much funnier than her. She is far faster than him. I am slightly hungrier than I was 20 minutes ago. We can also use particular language to do the same thing with negative comparatives. So I want you to look at a couple of expressions here and I want you to think if they describe a big difference or a small difference. No where near as no where near as funny as almost as almost as hot as not quite as not quite as popular as not nearly as not nearly as strong as so each of these expressions today describe a big difference or a small difference. No where near as is a big difference. So there’s a big degree of difference we use. No where near as almost as small a small difference we’re using almost as same for not quite as not quite as is a small difference and not nearly as we have another big difference. Now keeping this in mind keeping these expressions in mind let’s return to the previous slide. Now we have these expressions and I’m going to remind you of the data involved here. So what I want you to do is to see if you can work out what kind of degree of difference is involved in each of these sentences and what type of expression could best be used to improve the precision of these sentences. So should we use. Not nearly as should we use. No where near ours. What do you think. So with temperature Stockholm was six degrees and Helsinki was three degrees with speed. Yohan Blake can run 100 meters in nine point six nine seconds whereas you say in boat can run 100 meters in nine point five eight seconds and for a price the average house in 2000 was one hundred and twenty five thousand pounds. And in 2016 it was two hundred eighty two thousand pounds. So having being reminded of that day to see if you can think about which of those expressions describing degree of differences would be most appropriate in each of these instances when you’ve thought about that. You can press play and see my answers. So three degrees and six degrees not a big difference there. So here we are using a small difference indicator. Stockholm is almost as cold as Helsinki. The next one is also very small difference very just a couple of milliseconds in it. So Yohan Blake is not quite as fast as you. Same boat but the prices in houses very very different. More than doubling from 2000 to 2016. There’s a big difference and we expressed that with the average house in 2000 was nowhere near as expensive as the average House in 2016. Let’s move on to think about nouns now. So here the rule is a little bit more complicated. It is not. Plus verb Plus as Plus much or many depending on whether it’s account below countable noun Plus the noun or the noun phrase Plus as. And this can be used to compare nouns with negative comparative grammar rather than adjectives here focusing on nouns rather than adjectives. Now that structure can talk a little bit complicated but it really is just about a number of building blocks that can be used every time. So see if you can use that structure above to help you write a sentence about these groups of information. So again I recommend pausing the video here trying to write a sentence about each of these groups of information and then pressing play. When you’re ready to continue. OK let’s have a look here. So basketball does not attract as many students as football. Not plus verb attracts Plus as Plus many plus students plus hours and then football notices many because students is countable. If we had an uncountable noun it would be much but as it’s accountable now we have many that were not as many iPhones sold in 11 as in 2012. Notice that if we use that to be verb the not and the verb swap around. So we have there we’re not. Rather than not were there were not as many iPhones sold. Brazil did not win as many medals as Japan at the 2012 Olympics. Notice here we use moving into the past tense and we know that because of the use of did or did not. But everything else is exactly the same. And in the 2015 16 season Arsenal did not score as many goals as Leicester again just moving into the past tense. Everything else stays the same. Now if I take you back to this slide here which contains the data for the for each of these sentences you can see again whether there is a big or a small difference 30 to 90 400 million to 450 million 17 to 38 65 to 68. So there’s a few there are a couple that are big differences there are a couple that are small differences. With that in mind I want you to look at these sentences again and just like before. See if you can include one of those previous expressions to express a degree of difference. See if you can use one of those to add more accuracy and precision to the sentences so you can pause the video now and try to do that and when you’re ready you can press play to continue. OK let’s have a look here. Basketball does not attract any where near as many students as football. Notice it’s not no where near this time. So does not attract anywhere near quite similar but we’re saying anywhere not nowhere because we already have a not it wouldn’t make sense to add a no after or not so the next one. There were not quite as many iPhones sold in 2011 and 2012. And finally Brazil did not win nearly as many medals as Japan at the 2012 Olympics. So we’re using nearly here to actually express a big difference not a small difference although we use the word nearly to mean that two things are close together. Notice this is a negative comp. So saying it’s not nearly. They did not win nearly as many medals. So big difference. Followed by a small difference followed by another big difference. Finally let’s have a look at numerical comparatives. So use these types of comparatives not only to vary our vocabulary and grammar but also to add a little bit more precision and accuracy to our statements. Have a look at the bar chart on the right hand side here. Looking at the sales of P.S. 4s and x box ones over four months now I’m going to bring up here some sentences. What I want you to do is to see if you can fill in the gaps with an appropriate numerical comparative and appropriate words and to give you a clue. We’re looking for words like twice three times four times half. Language like this. OK. So post the video and then when you’re ready press play and we’ll see if we got these right. So there were twice as many P.S. fours sold in April as x ones. We know that because we can see that the X-Box one chart in April says 5 5 million. Where is the peers for shows 10 twice as many as five is 10. It’s basically saying double in May there were four times as many pieces for sold as X-Box ones. OK. Again same sort of thing. Three in May times four it was 12 in June. P.s. for sales tripled. Those of X-Box ones. This is a slightly different form. But again there’s a numerical element to it. Triple three. So in June there were nine million pieces for sold and 3 million Xbox Ones sold. And in July there were half as many peers for sold as box ones. We could also say in July there were twice as many Xbox Ones sold as peers 4S. This is another way that we can do this. We can use half as many instead. So there are plenty of different ways that we can compare data and avoid repetition. So try and use a mixture of these different ways on top of the regular comparatives. When you come to your next task one practice and see how you get on using numerical comparatives negative comparative to that X is a negative comparatives with nouns.