Much later in life, Qin would still wake from terrible nightmares of his college days. Yet unlike his many classmates who struggled with the math, his decision to major in physics was not the trigger for these episodes so much as his choice of studying in Urumchi, where the finest minds in the province would lecture on the most pressing scientific questions in whatever language and accent seemed most convenient at the time.
luckyfor2011
 said on
June 10, 2011
thank

mattjelly
 said on
June 20, 2011
Is it most natural to group 最 with these other adjectives? I had it in my head as going with 更 as in the comparative and superlatives ('-er' and '-est'). Is this a bad way to organise it mentally?
Xiao Hu
 said on
June 20, 2011
@MattJelly,

In Chinese, 最is used for the superlative (最高级 zui4 gao1 ji2), while 比 is used to for comparatives.

他的演讲比她的有意思 ta1 de yan3 jiang3 bi3 ta1 de hao3 ting1 (his speeches are more interesting than hers) or 她比她漂亮 ta1 bi3 ta1 piao4 liang, (she's prettier than her).

更 is used to express the meaning of "even more".

你比他更棒. ni3 bi3 ta1 geng4 bang4 (You're even more awesome than him)

Echo
 said on
June 20, 2011
@mattjelly & Xiao Hu,

Exactly like Xiao Hu said :) 最标准的答案！

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
mattjelly
 said on
June 20, 2011
@Echo & Xiao Hu

Thanks a lot, that's really helpful.

But what about the sentence 明天会更好 ming2 tian1 geng4 hao3, doesn't it play the '-er' role here?

Thanks :)
Echo
 said on
June 20, 2011
@mattjelly,

You can think it this way, if there are two things and you are comparing them, you usually want to use 比 in the sentence. Like "A 比 B adjective". You can combine 比 together with 更 as well. For instance, "A 比 B 更 adjective".

If there isn't a clear "B" used to compare with A in the sentence, you just want to use 更, but not 比. This is the situation about your sentence 明天会更好 (tomorrow will be even better). If you want to say "tomorrow will be better than today", you will need to use 比 － 明天会比今天更好。

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
mattjelly
 said on
June 20, 2011
@Echo,

Thanks a lot for your explanation, you've clarified things for me nicely :)

谢谢！
jasonmbechtel
 said on
October 19, 2014
But when there isn't a B can't you also use the full word 比较 as an adverb meaning "relatively" or "comparatively"? For example, "学习德语比较难", meaning "Studying German is relatively difficult (compared to other languages)." Or, "今天比较暖和", meaning "Today is comparatively warm (versus recent days)."