Japanese Learning: Comparison between two in an Adjective Predicate Sentence; [A] wa [B] yori [Adjective] desu.

1. Oosaka wa Koube yori Ookiidesu. (Osaka is bigger than Kobe.)

Tokyo is not the only urban city in Japan. There are many big cities in Japan. If you look at the western part of Japan, you will find some cities are there. Both the cities of Osaka and Kobe have wide surrounding areas, but let us look at their populations under each municipal government. There are 2.8 million citizens in Osaka City, while 1.5 million in Kobe City. Therefore, we can say “Osaka is bigger than Kobe”.

In the construction of “[A] wa [B] yori [Adjective] desu.”, you can substitute [N1 no N2] into [A] and [B], as shown below;

2. Watashi no Ie wa Satou-san no Ie yori Ookiidesu. (My house is bigger than Sato-san’s.)

The above example 1 and 2 use the I-adjective “Ookii(big)”. Not only I-adjective but you can also use Na-adjective in this construction as below.

3. Kono Kouen wa Ano Kouen yori Kirei desu. (This park is more beautiful than that park.)

This post was written with reference to the exercise A3 on Section 12 of “Minna no Nihongo” published by “3A Corporation”