Making Comparisons in Japanese: Yori and No Hou Ga
Welcome to Chapter 7! It's time to start making your sentences more descriptive and nuanced. One of the most common ways to do this is by making comparisons. In this lesson, you'll learn how to say that one thing is bigger, faster, more interesting, etc., than another.
The two key phrases you'll need are より (yori), which means "than," and 〜のほう が (no hō ga), a pattern that emphasizes one of the items.
The Basic Comparison
The simplest way to compare two things is with the particle より (yori).
The Formula
[Item A] は [Item B] より [Adjective] です。
In this pattern, より (yori) comes after the thing you are comparing against (B). Think of it as "A is [adjective]... than B."
新幹線は飛行機より安いです。(Shinkansen wa hikōki yori yasui desu.)
The Shinkansen is cheaper than the airplane.
The Emphatic Comparison: 〜のほう が
While the first pattern is grammatically perfect, it's more common in natural conversation to use the pattern 〜のほう が (no hō ga) to emphasize the item that "wins" the comparison.
The Formula
[Item A] のほう が [Item B] より [Adjective] です。
新幹線のほう が飛行機より安いです。(Shinkansen no hō ga hikōki yori yasui desu.)
The Shinkansen is cheaper than the airplane. (emphasizing the Shinkansen)
Asking Comparison Questions
To ask which of two things has a certain quality, you use the following pattern:
The Question Formula
[A] と [B] と、どちらのほう が [Adjective] ですか。
The answer to this question almost always uses the 〜のほう が pattern.
A: 犬と猫と、どちらのほう が好きですか。(Inu to neko to, dochira no hō ga suki desu ka?)
"Between dogs and cats, which do you like more?"
B: 猫のほう が好きです。(Neko no hō ga suki desu.)
"I like cats more." (Here, 「犬より」 is omitted but understood.)