Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[u911859]

If "this car" is cheap, but it is not very cheap while "the other cars" are not cheap, and the difference in price between them is just a little, how can I expresse this situation in an English comprative sentence?
Can I say "Compared to the other cars, this car is tolerably interesting, but only by a little"? Is the sentence grammatically acceptable?

[peterteacher]

I'm not sure why you're using the word 'interesting' when 'cheap' is supposed to be the focus...? Actually, it's probably fine as long as the reader knows that cheap cars are interesting to the person making the observation How about "Compared to the other cars this one is more tolerably priced, but only by a little".

Another way to say want you want would be: "None of the cars could be considered cheap but one is somewhat more reasonably priced".

The word "marginally" is also good if you want to indicate a very small difference. You could use it in place of 'somewhat' which indicates the difference is noticeable, but not very great.
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[u911859]