German Comparative and Superlative — größer, am größten

Deutsch Üben · free practice, no account needed

German makes comparisons more regularly than English does. Where English switches between bigger and more interesting depending on the length of the word, German simply adds an ending to everything — even to long adjectives. interessanter, not mehr interessant.

The three forms

Mein Zimmer ist kleiner als deins.
Von allen Zimmern ist dieses am kleinsten.

The umlaut group

A set of common one-syllable adjectives add an umlaut as well as the ending. There is no way to predict which ones — but the list is short and the words are frequent, so exposure handles most of it.

Also in this group: arm, dumm, hart, klug, krank, scharf, schwach, schwarz, gesund.

Note that the umlaut only appears in the comparative and superlative. The plain adjective keeps its original vowel: alt, not ält.

The five irregulars

These change more than their ending, and they are among the most-used words in the language — worth learning as a single block on day one.

hoch loses its c before an ending — höher, never hocher — and groß takes am größten rather than the expected am größesten.

gern is worth special attention because it works with verbs rather than nouns: Ich trinke gern Kaffee → Ich trinke lieber Tee → Am liebsten trinke ich Wasser. That progression is how you express preference in everyday German.

When -esten replaces -sten

The superlative usually adds -sten. But if the adjective ends in d, t, s, ß, z or sch, an extra e slips in to make the word pronounceable.

laut → am lautesten · kalt → am kältesten · interessant → am interessantesten · heiß → am heißesten

Say am lautsten out loud and the reason becomes obvious.

Adjectives that adjust their stem

Comparatives before a noun still take endings

A comparative used in front of a noun declines like any other adjective, so it carries two endings at once — the comparative -er and then the case ending.

ein größeres Zimmer · mit dem älteren Bruder · die bessere Lösung

The superlative behaves the same way and drops the am: das größte Zimmer, der beste Film.

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