Italian All-in-One For Dummies (116 page)

Lei è [così] vecchia come lui.
(
She is as old as him.
)

Lui è [così] dotato come Leonardo.
(
He is as gifted as Leonardo.)

Mi piace [così] mangiare come dormire.
(
I like eating as much as sleeping.
)

È importante [così] studiare come divertirsi.
(
It is as important to study as to have fun.
)

Tanto
, from the
tanto . . . quanto
way of stating comparison, also must precede an adjective or a verb. You can also leave out
tanto
.

Laura è [tanto] simpatica quanto sua sorella.
(
Laura is as nice as her sister.
)

La nostra casa è [tanto] vecchia quanto la vostra.
(
Our house is as old as yours.
)

Il liceo è [tanto] famoso quanto l'università.
(
The high school is as famous as the university.
)

Woody Allen può [tanto] dirigere un film quanto recitare.
(
Woody Allen can direct a movie as well as he can act.
)

Comparisons of inequality

With comparisons of inequality, you say that something is
più
(
more
) or
meno
(
less
) big, small, numerous, whatever, than something else:
più grande
(
more grand
),
meno simpatico
(
less nice
),
più case
(
more houses
),
meno ponti
(
fewer bridges
).

You can also use
than
when making comparisons of inequality; for example,
Lei è più alta di suo fratello
(
She is taller than her brother
) and
Ci sono più bambini che adulti
(
There are more children than adults
).
Than
is translated as
di
or
che,
depending on what you're comparing.

If you're comparing two distinct things or people, you use
di.

Il gatto è più giovane del cane.
(
The cat is younger than the dog.
) Here you're comparing two things, a cat and a dog, so you use
di.

Le tue ricette sono più buone di quelle nel libro.
(
Your recipes are better than those in the book.
) You're comparing your recipes to those in the book — two things — so you use
di
to mean
than.

L'italiano è più bello dell'inglese.
(
Italian is prettier than English.
) Again, you're comparing two things — Italian and English — so you use
di
to mean
than.

To comment on one thing and compare two characteristics or properties of that one thing, you use
che
to mean
than.

Firenze ha meno abitanti che turisti.
(
Florence has fewer inhabitants than tourists.
)

È più bello che intelligente.
(
He is more handsome than [he is] smart.
)

Mi piace più leggere che guardare la televisione.
(
I like reading more than [I like] watching television.
)

All three sentences have single subjects:
Firenze
(
Florence
),
lui
(
he
), and
io
(
I
). In each case, you're discussing one thing or person, and comparing things about that person or thing.

You can follow
than
with a conjugated verb as well. If you want to say, for example, that Venice is cleaner than you thought, that is, following
than
with a conjugated verb
(
I thought
), then you say
Venezia è più pulita di quel che credevo.
Here are a couple of additional examples:

I gatti sono più simpatici di quel che mi hai detto.
(
The cats are nicer than you told me.
)

Il museo è meno vicino di quel che sembrava.
(
The museum is less near than it seemed.
)

The best and the worst: Superlatives

Just as in English, in Italian you can rank objects to establish which one is the highest or the lowest in a series or group. And you can declare that one object is excellent at something even if you don't compare it with anything else.

To rank objects as the highest or lowest when the second term is a noun or pronoun, you use
il più/il meno . . .
di/in
(
the most/least . . . of/in
). You match the adjective with the noun that it refers to.

Luciano è il più alto dei figli.
(
Luciano is the tallest of the children.
)

Marta è la meno agile della squadra.
(
Marta is the least agile on the team.
)

The absolute superlative expresses the greatest degree of an adjective or an adverb, as in
I ragazzi sono lentissimi
(
The boys are very slow
). In English, you convey it by adding
very, much, by far, incredibly, amazingly,
and so on to an adjective or an adverb.

To express the absolute superlative in Italian, you modify adjectives by dropping the final vowel and adding
-issimo, -issima, -issimi,
or
-issime;
for example,
gentile
→
gentilissimo
(
very kind
) and
alto
→
altissimo
(
very tall
). When the adjective or adverb ends in
-i,
you add only
-ssimo.
For example,
tardi
→
tardissimo
(
very late
). As usual, you coordinate the adjective to the noun in gender and number.

Quei vestiti sono carissimi.
(
Those dresses are very expensive.
)

Torno a casa prestissimo.
(
I'll be coming home very early.
)

When you want to convey a superlative less emphatically, in Italian you can add
molto
or
assai
(
very
). Despite the fact that
molto
and
assai
mean
very,
the phrase
molto grande
means
large,
big,
or
rather big
instead of
very large,
which translates to
grandissimo
.

For some emphasis, you also have the option of repeating a short adjective or adverb, like
grande grande
or
presto presto
(with no comma between them). For example,
Le diede un abbraccio forte forte
(
She gave her a really strong hug
). You typically don't do this with long words because it doesn't sound good.

Special comparatives and superlatives

In Italian you have two ways of saying that someone has
più
(
more
) or
meno
(
less
) of the qualities expressed by the adjectives
buono
(
good
),
cattivo
(
bad
),
grande
(
big
), and
piccolo
(
small; little
). You can add
più
or
meno
to the adjective, or use special words, as listed in
Table 4-4
.