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Advanced Comparison

2 min
C1
CEFR C1·other

Formula

The + more/less + (adj/adv)
the + more/less + (adj/adv)
and
far / a lot / slightly
than
not nearly / nowhere near
as

Examples

Positive
The more you practice, the more confident you become.
Negative
This flat isn't nearly as spacious as our old one.
Question
Isn't this version far better than the last one?

Common Time Markers

day by day
over time
by the minute
every year
these days

Usage

  • •Describing two things that change in proportion to each other (the more...the more)
  • •Describing something that keeps changing or intensifying over time (double comparatives)
  • •Emphasizing how big a difference is (far / a lot / much + comparative + than)
  • •Softening or minimizing a difference (slightly / a little + comparative + than)
  • •Pushing back on an assumed similarity by stressing a large gap (not nearly as / nowhere near as...as)

More Examples

  • The harder you work, the luckier you get.

    Correlative comparison — proverb-style cause and effect.

  • The less time we spend arguing, the more we get done.

    Correlative comparison mixing less and more across the two clauses.

  • Traffic in the city center gets worse and worse every year.

    Double comparative — an ongoing, still-continuing trend.

  • The queue was getting longer and longer by the minute.

    Double comparative in the past continuous, for a trend in progress at that time.

  • This edition is far more detailed than the first one.

    Modifier "far" strengthening a comparative to emphasize a large gap.

  • Honestly, the sequel is not nearly as good as the original.

    Not nearly as...as — stressing a big negative gap, pushing back on an assumption of similarity.

Common Mistakes

  • ✗Dropping "the" in the correlative structure: "More you study, more you learn" instead of "The more you study, the more you learn."
  • ✗Using "more and more" with short adjectives that already form an -er comparative: "more and more big" instead of "bigger and bigger."
  • ✗Forgetting "and" in double comparatives: "bigger bigger" instead of "bigger and bigger."
  • ✗Treating "not nearly as...as" like "almost as...as" — they mean opposite things: "not nearly as good" = much worse, "almost as good" = nearly equal.

Tips

  • ✓In the-more...the-more sentences, both halves use the same pattern (more/less/adjective+er) and never take "than."
  • ✓Modifiers rank on a scale: "far," "a lot," "much" strengthen a comparative; "slightly," "a little," "marginally" weaken it.
  • ✓"Nowhere near as" and "not nearly as" are interchangeable — both stress a large gap, never a small one.

Advanced Notes

Native speakers reach for these forms to add precision an ordinary comparative can't: the-more...the-more frames two things changing in proportion (often used in advice, proverbs, and cause-effect reasoning), double comparatives ("busier and busier") signal a trend still in motion rather than a fixed state, and modifiers let a speaker calibrate exactly how big a gap is — "far better" (large gap, emphatic), "slightly better" (small gap, understated), "not nearly/nowhere near as good" (a large gap in the negative direction, often used to push back on an assumption). "Nowhere near" and "way" (as in "way more") skew informal/spoken; "far," "considerably," and "not nearly" work in both speech and writing.

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