Lesson video

- This is the first lesson of a unit on adjectives.

And in this lesson we're going to look at the comparison of adjectives.

How are you feeling, are you feeling happy? You feeling extremely angry? You feeling a bit bored? Let's find out, let's have a look at these adjectives.

The comparison of adjectives, our learning objectives are, can I define and distinguish, so tell the difference between positive, comparative and superlative adjectives, in both English and Latin? And can I translate all the forms, so these forms up here, in Latin, in full sentences? Press pause if you need to, to go and get the stuff you need for this lesson.

Well done if you do come prepared.

Right, I'm ready to move on, you should be too.

Let's have a look at this grammar point.

Are you ready? Laetus, laetior, laetissimus.

So one more time.

What just happened? So laetus, we know just from your own learning, and also from the picture, means happy.

What happened from laetus, to laetior.

Laetior, now you might have, bear in mind we got one more step to go.

So it's not going to be the happiest yet, you're going to go from laetus, laetior, laetissimus.

Happy, laetior, happier, good.

Happier, or more happy, alright? Laetior, and last one laetissimus, so you lean into the S.

Laetissimus, one more time, laetissimus.

Good, and this one is going to be, that one up there is going to be very happy, or the most, laetissimus, the most happy, or the happiest, laetissimus, alright? Okay, let's have another look at another example.

So here you've got irata.

Meaning angry, iratior, will be angrier.

Irata, iratior, and then last one, we got this one, we got iratissima, will be the angriest, or very, or the most angry.

What's this sentence mean? Nice, the crocodile is fierce.

The crocodile is more fierce.

It's going to be correct, yes.

The crocodile is the fiercest, or very fierce.

And last we've got sort of running race between camel and leopard here.

Now celerior, is that quicker? Is that the quickest? It's going to be? Good, it's going to be quicker, celerior, quicker.

Quicker, almost you might say, more fast, or quicker.

So now let's figure out what this word means here.

The leopard is quicker, something camel.

The Leopard is quicker? Good, than, so quam is than the camel.

Should I have a look at the race then, in three, on your marks, get set and go.

And then look, the camel's taking his time there.

So yes, we can see that leopard really is quicker than the camel.

Right, so it's as simple as this, alright? The comparison of adjectives, there's three degrees of comparison.

And you've got positive, comparative and superlative.

So with me, positive, comparative, superlative.

One more time, comparative, superlative.

Now positive, we'll look at this in a sec.

But what students see when they see positive, is they think that well sort of laetus is the positive adjective, 'cause it means happy, and it's a positive feeling, whereas iratas or tristas, they're not positive adjectives, 'cause they mean, angry or sad, and that's not positive.

Positive adjectives are just ones that haven't been changed.

Most adjectives you've learned so far have been positive, i.

e there's nothing to do yet with any degree of comparison down here.

When you get to comparative, you see an ior on the end, for thinking something er, or more something, ior, more, use this it looks a bit like happier, you just either change that O to an E there, or rhyme it with more, and you get that one, alright? There is this tricky form here, that everyone forgets about, but I don't, alright? Which is the ius form, used for the neuter gender.

If we don't know what the neuter gender is, then you want to go back a unit, and watch the lesson on the neuter as I explicitly did for this course, you're welcome.

So for example, the happier forum, maybe, wouldn't be forum laetior, it would be laetius, because forum is a neuter noun.

Now that's tricky, because something like what's the difference between laetior and laetius was just that I, even though one is positive, the other one is neuter comparative, but we're going to do it as we work on it, so don't worry.

And the last one, your superlatives, you're looking for an issi, erri, illi in the middle, and that's going to mean something est, very or the most something.

Issi, is the something est, or the most, I have already flagged that.

Erri rhymes with very, so there's no excuses for getting that wrong.

Okay, let's have a look at some of these in action, here's an example with laetus, do we see positive.

Laetus is a positive adjective, 'cause it makes us about being happy, and that's positive.

No, no, no, it is not yet being, there's no degree of comparison yet, right? So therefore it's just positive, assume it's normal for positive kind of Laetus means happy.

Laetior and laetius, happier or more happy.

Then laetissimus, is the happiest, or very, or the most happy.

Two more examples however, it wasn't just iss, was it? There were two other things to look out for was, issi, illi, and erri, let's have a look.

Next up we've got erri, celerrimus, means very fast, erri, right? And then also you've got facillimus.

So meaning the easiest, or very easy.

If your adjective normally end in E-R, then it's going to go to erri.

It's not going to be celerissimus, but celerrimus.

And if your adjective has an L near the end, it's not facillissimus, but facillimus, meaning the easiest, or difficillimus, meaning very difficult.

There's one more thing to remember, we're not done yet.

And that is, with comparatives, you're going to see an extra word, usually on the end, and that word is quam, which means than.

It nearly rhymes, quam, than, quam, so laetior quam, happier than.

Calerior quam, quicker than.

Facilior quam, easier than, okay? Let's have a look at some practise then.

So what's going to happen here is, I'm going to go like this.

I'm going to, now do you see what I've just given you the stems of some adjectives here, not giving you the endings, and that's because I'm going to be making the endings on the fly, however I feel like it.

And if I put an ending on the end that's positive, you're going to go like that.

And if I put an ending on the end, that's comparative, you're going to go like that.

And if I put an ending on the end that's superlative, you're going to go like that.

One more time, it's a bit tricky for you to do with this screen.

Maybe I should lean back a bit.

Yeah, so you're going to go like that.

That's superlative, positive, sorry, superlative, comparative, positive.

Comparative, superlative, just show me the signs quickly.

I'm not saying any Latin, just show me positive.

Good, show me superlative.

Show me, go from superlative to positive.

Good, now go from positive to comparative.

Good, how would you translate the comparative? You would say something er, good, or more something.

Go from comparative to superlative.

Great let's have a look.

♪ So which am I going to, and countdown three, two, one.

♪ This won't works, so which am I going to pick? Let's do laetior.

So laetior, is it gonnna be? That will be? Two, this one, comparative, happier.

Iratior, is going to be? Comparative, ferocs?.

Good, that one's just normal positive, I've not changed it.

There's no ior, there's no issi, comparative ferocior, comparative.

So let's starts, tell you what, we going to start with positive, and then you tell me what the degree is, okay? So novior, comparative.

Celerior, comparative.

Iratissimus, superlative.

Laetissima, superlative.

Celerimum, superlative, and novior, comparative.

Callidus, positive good.

Pulchrior, comparative.

And facillimor, superlative.

Now let's go from, it's just moving around.

I'm going to go from fortissimus, to fortior, what changes? Show me with your hands, don't tell me anything.

It's going to go from fortissimus, to fortior.

It's going to be superlative, to comparative.

I'm going to go from laetior, to or laetissima, what changes? Laetior to laetissima, we're going to go from comparative to superlative.

I'm going from pulchre to pulcherimo, from positive pulchre, good, to pulcheri, to very beautiful, that one.

Okay, so should we do a quick little translation.

Now no actions, just tell me the answer.

It should be right there now.

So iratus would be? Angry, novus? New, novior? Newer, novissimus? Newest, novius? New, and now good.

Novius is going to be what gender? It's comparative Novius, comparative, and it's what gender? It's the neuter.

Good, you might have donum novius.

So it'll be the newer gift.

Celerior, will be quicker.

Celerrius is quicker, still comparative, is what gender? It's neuter, let's do, maybe I'll do one more.

Maybe I won't.

Callidus, means clever it's positive.

Callidius is comparative, cleverer.

And it's neuter, it's comparative, I just told you, it's neuter.

We have to skip it.

Iratissima, is angriest.

Fortissima, bravest, facilior, is easier.

Ferocissimum, is a bit longer than that.

Is the fiercest.

Ferocius, is fiercer, or more fierce.

And it's what gender, it is neuter, good.

And I think we're there, laetissimus is? Just do it, back to hands.

Laetissimus, is the happiest.

Ferocior is fiercer.

Celer, just on its own, is positives, means quick.

Celerrima, is good, is the quickest, is superlative.

Novius is comparative, newer.

Okay right, let's have look.

So your main task is just going to be translating 10 adjectives that look like that completely on their.

Just a final little trial run.

So laetior, is going to be which of these three? Ior, it's going to be happier, good.

Laetissimus, is the, issi, the happiest.

And fortissimus, is therefore the bravest, it's superlative.

And facilior is easier, and facilius, is also easier.

What gender is facilius, it is tell me? It is neuter gender, lovely.

Okay right, there are 10 of you to do there.

Just as we practised now.

So you're on your own now, press pause, tell me what those adjectives mean, go.

Okay, so we should do a different colour pen.

Let's see how we did.

I'll give you press pause, take two minutes to mark your answers here.

Tell you what, actually before you do that, I'm going to speak to you now.

If you just wrote angrier, so obviously, the comparative and the superlative have numerous forms in English, if you just gave the one form.

So if you just wrote angrier, or if you just wrote more angry, that's absolutely fine.

So we've got one of the things here.

I've missed out the most translations for the superlatives, if you did write most angry, or most happy, that's great.

I mean, it's perfect.

So that's also correct.

So don't worry if you didn't put both forms in, if one of them is there, then that's completely correct, well done.

I'm trying to think if there's any synonyms here, fierce, easy, celer, if you wrote for fortis, if you wrote strong, that's absolutely fine by me, so stronger, or more strong.

Okay, off you go.

Right, let's have a look at these in full sentences, bringing me back.

Up here now.

I just got make sure this is the right size.

Any minute now, so wasting good lesson time Mr. Fuber.

Now let's have a look at these steps first, I've added a new step here, between normally step one, there's a new step two essentially, and that is, each of the sentences you're going to be doing has an adjective in, and you need to really scrutinise anytime you see any adjective, whether it is positive, comparative or superlative.

That's what pos, comp and super stands for, okay? So that's just give us extra steps, really practise those, and all the rest is the same.

I'm going to do the first example, and I don't want any help.

You just have a look and see if I can do it on my own.

I've got.

The first thing I do, is I look at my beginnings of words.

So pater, I know it's to do with father.

Tristissimus, issi don't worry, that's for later.

Step two for now, tristis, shows that the old tristis.

I got laetus and tristis is sad.

So let's do sad, and lacrimabat.

Well I was just miming it, wasn't I? Lacrima, has to do with crying, it's cry.

Step one done.

Now I find my adjective, and I triple, quadruple ask myself if I've got the right degree of comparison here.

My adjective is going to be tristissimus, it means sad.

Adj, this is my verb, I'm not going to do the rest.

Not skip steps.

Adjective, now tristissimus, so I've got tristis, tristior or tristissimus.

So it's going to be the sad, sadder, and there's going to be issi, that one, that one's going to be the saddest, good.

So I'm going to sad, so I'm going to change this Latin here, for this English, done.

Superlative, now I look at my word endings, and I check everything's working with regards to case, number, person, and tense.

Pater that's my nominative, I know is it going to be father or fathers.

Father or fathers, pater.

It's the just the one, you shouldn't be joining in, it's meant to be me doing on my own.

Pater is just the one, a plural word, so I don't need to change anything.

Plural would be paters.

I think I'm done, I've got case, number.

You see my verbs, when I say bat, you say was or were.

So it's going to be was crying.

There should be a he there, but we won't need it, because I know my nominative is the father.

I've got father, saddest was crying.

Now this is where things get more interesting.

Please revise how to translate sentences with adjectives in.

and it goes like this.

Normally we're used to a nom, verb, acc format.

However, the thing that's tricky about adjectives in Latin, is that they come after their noun.

But when we translate them into English, we put them on the front of our noun.

So you have to switch the order out.

Here I've got father, saddest was crying.

And sometimes students rearrange things, and they might say, "The crying father was the saddest." or they might go, "The father was the saddest and crying." "Cause you can add words in Latin, can you? Add a the in, I'll add an and in, it doesn't matter.

No, no, no, no, really scrutinise here, we're going to go for adjective, nom, verb.

I haven't got an accusative.

I've got a nom, an adj, and a verb.

So it's going to be adjective, nominative, verb.

Adjective, nominative, verb.

That word, that word, that word.

Saddest father was crying, make it make sense.

It will be the saddest, or the very sad father was crying.

Tick, done, okay? So far we're watching me do it, now how about you have a go, alright? Let's have a little look.

So you've got a number two, I'm going to bring you in.

So brace yourself.

First thing is I do my word beginnings.

Can you mime to me what a regina is, so regina.

So we're going to do some, mime to me.

It will be something like, something like that.

Something to do with royalty, a regina is a queen.

Crudelior is from, now ior, don't worry, it's from crudelis, which is a word you might not have encountered.

Mime, how are we going to mime this.

Mime crudelior if you can to me.

Some crudelis is, I don't know, sort of like, it's something negative, I can't really mime it.

Cruel alright, and here's your clue there.

It has to do with cruel.

Quam, when I say quam.

Do you remember, it nearly rhymes, quam is than.

Now what's the difference between rex and regina? Regina means queen, rex means, tell me, rex means, very nice it means king.

And erat, let's say, do remember erats is to do with being around as I was, let's just put was in for now.

Step one is done.

Step two, we find our adjective, And we check the deal, we check whether it's positive, comparative and superlative.

These one, two, three, four, five words there.

Tell me out loud, big strong voice, what is the adjective, in that the Latin word, that is the adjective in that sentence, three, two, one, tell me.

Great, crudelior that's our adjective.

Now, crudelis, crudelior, crudelissimus, which one's it going to be? Cruel, it's going to be, tell me? It's going to be crueller.

Or in this case, let's go for more cruel.

I'm just trying to fit more in here.

It's going to happen.

More like that.

Okay, and that's step two, and we're done.

There's no more adjectives.

Now I just double check, but let's do it together, our case and number.

This is our nominative here again, regina, there's no changes.

So we got nom, and crudelior, we know is our adjective.

Quam is technically a preposition, don't worry about it.

Rex is another nominative, and erat is our verb.

Queen or queens, was just the one queen.

King or kings, it's a singular ending, it's a nominative singular, the form I've learned, it's not been changed in any way, it must be singular.

Step three is done.

Let's make it make sense.

Queen more cruel than king was.

We're going to one for this one now.

Let's have a look.

Here we've not got an accusative, and instead we want to go for this format, which is when you've got a nominative form of adjective.

Nom, form of some adjectives, so that word, that word, that word, and then make the rest makes sense.

Queen more cruel than king was, tell me what it's going to be? The, good, the queen was more cruel, or was crueller than the king.

I would write that down, but you know what it means, I know what it means.

Let's have a look at some more example.

In this example, someone has made a mistake.

Let's have a look at the Latin.

Mistranslated, is you, there's one mistake in there, at least one mistake.

Is you were braver than the friend you saw.

10 seconds what's wrong with that transition there? Go, two, one.

And let's have a little look.

So really well done, if we got the fortissima, look it's the standard.

This is just a classic mistranslation of a superlative, as a comparative.

I think maybe because, I see this sort of thing all the time, maybe because the student has got a bit confused about quod, and thought you've got an adjective has been changed, followed by a quod word.

So that's probably going to mean than, and therefore this will be comparative.

You were, the you were bit is great.

And the you saw bit is great.

But we've got, not you were braver than.

But you were, fortissima.

You were fortissima.

You were very brave.

Or you were the bravest? Let's do very brave, and then not.

Quod does not mean than, quod means.

Do you remember quod means? Because good, because.

Now, you are very brave because the friend you saw, this is a second mistake, amicum, they were just trying to make it make sense.

Or you might say because the friends saw.

♪ Amicum, what letter do singular, ♪ ♪ accusative end in M ♪ So this is our accusative, and then we go over here, so it should be receiving the seeing.

So what we're doing is just translating the friend, and you saw they get swapped around, and we get a whole thing.

You were very brave, because you saw your, or the friend.

One more with a mistake here, let's have a little look.

It is this one,.

There's your mistranslation.

The queen was angrier and crueller than the rest.

What's wrong that? 10 seconds, go.

And one, and zero.

Now I'm going to make some changes on this one, actually.

And I want you, because I'm doing this, it's going to be wrong, isn't it? But I'm going to make some changes, and I want you to nod, or shake your head after I've done a bit of speaking, to tell me if what I'm going to do is different, is correct.

So, I mean, what's happened here, alright? Is that I think you're going to be seeing at least one of the sentences that you're going to be translating in a few minutes, will include, both an iratissima, and a crudelior.

Crudelis, crudelior, crudelissimus, will include a superlative, and a comparative.

It's about how you manage the difference between those two things.

Here we've got a superlative, which has been translated as a comparative.

so this is in fact, angriest.

Angrier, I'm going to do angriest.

Now I finished, the queen was, this looks about to make sense, isn't it? The queen was angriest and crueller than the rest.

Fine let's move on, nodding heads, shaking heads.

By virtue of me asking you, it's going to be shaking heads, isn't it? Because we've got this issue still, down here look, adjective, nominative, acc bla bla bla, this one is going to be adjective, nominative, it's tough.

This is where the sentence structure for these two kind of smooches together.

Now with an adjective there's no, look the, key is, I just want to jump into this sentence all at once.

There's no word for and here, the student put and in, in order to make their mistake makes sense.

You might be tempted to keep that in.

The Queen was angriest and crueller, but you've not got et in here.

There's no and word.

So what we need to do is, this needs to go somewhere, alright? This adjective, and do we see how? Look, what was the rule? Adjectives, they come after their noun in Latin, and where do they go in English? They go in front of their noun in Latin.

So we've not got the queen was angriest, but instead we've got the, oh sorry, the, nice and sneaky drawing there.

The angriest queen was crueller than the rest.

Do you see, okay? The angriest queen was crueller than the rest.

If you did have an et in there, then it would change.

And it would be the queen was the angriest, and crueller, there's no et.

So you need to move the angriest, and make it make sense, alright? You're going to be fine, there every example is more difficult than that one.

But just bear that in mind, in terms of how to negotiate the difference between superlatives, iratissima, and crudelior, there's one sentence in there at least, which has that difference.

Let's have a look at the sentences, which you're going to do on your own, all by yourself pressing pause.

Pen and paper ready, off you go.

Okay, now challenge coming up.

Press pause to do that challenge, there you go.

And now switching to a different colour pen, let's correct these sentences.

So as before, on task number one, if you've translated these, you can give either translations of superlatives, or comparatives.

So you can say the girl is more happy, that's absolutely fine.

The mother is angriest, or very angry, or the most angry.

Any of those are okay.

So you can use your initiative at this stage, you've seen enough to know what works, so long as you're not confusing superlatives and comparatives.

Moving on to the next three.

Good to hear, making sure that you translated this as yours.

Some students they just lose, gets to the end of the sentence and they just, I don't know, don't think for a bit, and write was more before than you.

Doesn't make any sense, more beautiful, is obviously correct English word, beautifuler isn't.

So make sure it's more beautiful for that one.

Good, really well done if you've got this one right.

So this was my sneaky one, alright? Which is like that cruel, so that angry and cruel queen.

Here there was an et, so we have the ship was very new, and quicker than the rest.

Good, and here well done, if we made sure we knew.

It's very similar to one we did in the practise, make sure that the friends doing the seeing, optimum means, now if you translated this as a very good, or excellent friend, that's absolutely fine.

So optimus can mean three things.

Excellent, very good, or the best.

Any of those translations, they're absolutely fine by me.

Here's some answers to the challenge, really well done if you did it.

Correct your answers there.

And all that's left is for us to, is for us to complete the exit quiz.

But before that, we're going to say goodbye to one another.

And I'm just going to make sure that you know the difference between positive, comparative, superlative.

So give me the grammatical term for this one, this is called the what? This is called the superlative, that one's called the comparative, and you got the positive.

Iratior is going to be which one? Show me in two, one, comparative.

Ferocissimus will be superlative.

Facillimus will be superlative, and calerior is going to be comparative.

Lovely, okay very well done.

I can't wait.

I hope you can't either to be translating some of these comparative, and superlative, and positive adjectives in the translation which is coming up.

So I'll see you there, valete, very well done.