Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[tisogai]

Please help me on the question below.

My teachers are ( ) my neighbors.

1. more fliendlier than
2. friendlier than
3. friendly than
4. friendly as

I guess #2 is the answer. But isn't #4 also OK although it makes the meaning different, is it??

Thanks.

[CP]

My teachers are ( ) my neighbors.

1. more fliendlier than
--Spelling is "friendlier"; "more friendly than" is OK, but not "more friendlier than," since "friendlier" means "more friendly."

2. friendlier than
--Correct.

3. friendly than
--Either "more friendly than" or "friendlier than" are correct. But "friendly" is not in the comparative form, so you don't use "than."

4. friendly as
--You could say "as friendly as" to mean "equally friendly," or "not as friendly as / not so friendly as" to mean "less friendly," but you can't just use "friendly as" and be correct.
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You live a new life for every new language you speak. -Czech proverb

[tisogai]

CP, thanks so much!

My follow-up question is;

Why is "more friendly than" possible??

We don't say "He is more tall than", then why is more friendly than OK??

I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks.

[CP]

I don't know why, but some adjectives just do not lend themselves to the more X construction as well as the Xer construction for the comparative.

My teachers are _____ than my neighbors.

taller [but not more tall]
friendlier / more friendly
lonelier / more lonely
richer [but not more rich]
more educated [but not educateder]
more well-rounded [but not better-rounded or weller-rounded]
more exasperating [but not exasperatinger]

It's just one of the reasons that English is more hard to learn than other languages. [Actually, just harder to learn.]
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You live a new life for every new language you speak. -Czech proverb

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