Getting To Know Comparatives & Superlatives.

Another cog of the English language demystified.

You know, teachers are rather cunning when they announce a test. Of course they give ample warning, but they also include just about every chapter in the book. Goodness, apart from helping with the homework I have been hard pressed to manage to go over most of the material mentioned for the test. I love being able to do extra lessons but I also want my ' pupil ' to understand and do well.

Anyway, the last bit to be studied were comparatives ( one form of it ) & superlatives. I admit that I had to look it up in the coursebook. No shame in doing that, because I am sure that most of you use it daily, but would be hard pressed to teach it out of the blue.

Comparatives: ...as good / tall / clever / heavy as...
Superlatives:...the best / tallest / cleverest / heaviest...

Today is the English test at the local middle school and as I was helping with the grape harvesting yesterday, I had an extra lesson with my chap on Monday afternoon. Well, Bob and I had just arrived home at 7 pm last night, when the phone rang.

Another one of the local kids who is doing the test this morning, was in a panic as he was unsure how to do the comparative part. His mum ( a friend of ours ) phoned me to ask how to do it. Well, as they only live about two kilometers away, I told her that I would quickly come up to show him.

He had to figure out ten sentences using either comparatives or superlatives with a set of examples. Good grief, why the teacher had to use dinosaurs as themes is a mystery to me. These poor guys had to use elongated dinosaurs names ( as long as two names ) in each and every sentence. If it were me, I would have shortened it to simply T-Rex instead!

Mission accomplished, I drove home and was feeling good. Being needed and actually being able to make a difference is nice.

The only down side to my evening excursion was that when I drove home through the forest, I saw a deer hovering on the verge of my head lights. I slowed to a crawl so that it could safely hop back into the forest. When I stopped completely, it merely limped across the road. It looked to have an injured fore foot. It was still a small deer and I thought to maybe take it to the local rangers.

But it disappeared into the forest and how would the ranger be able to find it there. Nature does have a downside at times.

Biggi