Comparing.

1. We use various words and structures with as + adjective/adverb + as to compare things and express the
degree of difference between them.

1 Many cities in the UK are just as multicultural as London nowadays.

2 I don’t think English is anything like as hard to learn as Chinese.

2. Some of the most common phrases and their meanings are:

more than the same amount less than

twice, three times just, every bit nowhere near, nothing like,
(not) nearly, not, not quite, almost

1 Nowadays they don’t drive anywhere near as fast as they used to.
2 The survey showed newspapers were twice as likely as magazines to be recycled.

3. Here are some of the most common phrases we use before comparative adjectives and adverbs + than:

Small difference Big difference Simple

a (little) bit, slightly much, far, a lot, a great deal, five hours, minutes, km, no, any
considerably, significantly

1 I think children learn languages nowadays far more easily than we did at school.
2 Nowadays life is no harder than it was; it’s just a different set of pressures.
3 Weekdays are significantly less busy than weekends at the museum.

4. Before a noun, we often use the following words + more/less/fewer + noun:

comparative structure example

a bit/far/a great deal/a
little/a lot/much/many
a bit/far/a great deal/a
little/a lot/much
far/a great deal
more She’s under a great deal more pressure in this post.
There’ll be a bit more money in the account next month.
less Children spend much less time playing outside.
I think there’s a lot less choice on TV these days.
fewer There were far fewer career choices when he was young.

5. We also use as much/many + noun + as.

1 We don’t have as many products on the market as we used to.

6. When one situation automatically results in another situation, we use the …. the... with comparative
adjectives/adverbs, verb clauses and nouns.

1 The bigger the engine, the more inefficient the fuel consumption.
2 The more quickly we finish this report, the better we’ll feel.
3 The faster it moves, the less likely it is to be caught.
7. We also use phrases such as more and more, bigger and bigger, less and less, fewer and fewer, etc. +
noun to give emphasis and show the difference is increasing.

1 They are working fewer and fewer hours as demand falls.

2 More and more people are renting their homes rather than buying.

8. Remember to use the correct quantifier with the correct noun.

+ countable nouns + uncountable nouns + countable/uncountable

fewer less more
many much

1 There are fewer people at the conference this year than I imagined.

2 I’ve seen many more new cars on the road since the recession ended.

3 There’s actually much less pollution in the city centre than people think.

4 There was much more noise than usual coming from the building site yesterday.