Functional Arabic: Phrases for comparison like "more/less than"

بِسْمِ ٱللَّٰهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

In the English language, comparisons to determine something over the other usually use the "scale of comparison" followed by the word 'than'.

These comparisons are used frequently in dialogue when evaluating things against each other.

In language terms, these concepts are known as: Superlative and Comparative

Four common examples are listed below:

• I eat more food than you
• I eat less food than you
• This book is better than yours
• This book is worse than yours

In Arabic, the word 'than' does not technically exist. The four examples listed above can be written in Arabic as such:

• اَنا آكُلْ طَعامً أَكْثَرُ مِنْكَ
• اَنا آكُلْ طَعامً أَقَلُُّ مِنْكَ
• هذا الْكِتابُ أَفْضَلُ مِنْ كِتابِكَ
• هذا الْكِتابُ أَسْوَأُُ مِنْ كِتابِكَ

The first thing to note is that the comparison comes after the object(مفعول). A word-for-word translation would be: I eat food more than you

In the second set of examples, the comparison explicitly requires an object(كتابك), whereas in English this is not required.

Lastly, the scale of comparison words (better, worse, more, less) are nouns(إسم).

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