A Door Into Hindi: Lesson 13

View movie on Comparitives

Hindi doesn’t have any special words for adjectival comparatives like English “better,” “faster,” “worse,” etc. Instead, Hindi uses the following comparative formula:

राम अच्छा है।= “Ram is good.”

राम श्याम से अच्छा है।= “Ram is better than Shyam.” (Literally,”Ram is good from Shyam.”)

Additional examples:

A. Amitabh Bachchan is taller than Anil Kapoor.

 अमिताभ बच्चन अनिल कपूर से लम्बा है।

 (Literally: Amitabh Bachchan is tall from Anil Kapoor.)

B. The Himalayan range is higher than the Rockies.

 हिमालय राकी से ऊँचा है।

 (Literally: The Himalayan range is high from the Rockies.)

C.   You are better than me.

 तुम मुझसे अच्छी हो।  

Remember: "से" is a postposition, which changes the word before it into oblique!

See Snell's Teach Yourself Hindi (2000) Section 4.3 page 53