Superlative adjectives

Hi there, and welcome to another great lesson with New English Academy. I’m your guide Giles Parker and today we’re going to focus on superlative adjectives. The comprehension text is about some of the strangest world records in the Guinness Book of Records. This lesson is aimed at beginners but anyone can find something new and interesting here. First we’ll talk about how to make and use superlative adjectives then we’ll listen to, or read if you want, the comprehension text. As always, don’t forget to check out the great online games and learning activities that go with this lesson on our website at New English Academy.com.

First, a little chat about superlative adjectives. You know how adjectives give more information about nouns, how they describe something, make it more interesting? Well superlative adjectives talk about the one thing in its group that is the most ‘whatever’ in its group. For example:

· I live in a house.

Let’s add an adjective;

· I live in a nice house

Now let’s make it a superlative adjective;

· I live in the nicest house in the village.

Did you see where the adjective goes? That’s right, just put it before the noun. And, did you see what happened to the superlative? Because it is the most ‘whatever’, you put the before it.

Did you also notice that I added a little prepositional phrase after the noun? We have to say what group the noun belongs to when we use superlative adjectives, because after all we are saying something is the most ‘whatever’ in a group. So, to summarize, the adjective goes in front of the noun, add the and a prepositional phrase to say what the group is.

Superlative adjectives change depending on how many syllables there are. You know what a syllable is, right? A sound unit. So an adjective like nice has just one syllable, but an adjective like beautiful has three syllables. With short adjectives just add –est to the end of the adjective. For example;

· This is the nicest place I have ever been.

· He’s the tallest guy in our office.

· These are the cheapest shoes in the shop.

Some adjectives have two or more syllables – long adjectives. For most of these adjectives, just put the most in front of the adjective. For example;

· She’s the most beautiful woman I have ever met.

· These are the most expensive shoes in the shop.

Typically, because this is language learning and nothing is ever completely easy, there are a couple of irregular or problem forms. First, if a two syllable adjective ends in y we drop the y and add iest, for example;

· You think that is funny? Now, this is the funniest thing ever.

· That guy isn’t just creepy, he’s the creepiest guy in the building.

See how we always put the and a phrase afterwards to say what the group is?

There are three irregular adjectives – good, bad, and far. The superlative forms for these are the best, and the worst and the farthest. For example:

· I’ve had good pizza before but this one was the best I’ve ever had.

· Bad day at the office? Man, it was the worst day ever.

And now the problem adjectives… remember how short adjectives usually take –est on the end? Well, fun is causing problems. The grammar books tell you (and I don’t know why) that we shouldn’t add -est but should add the most. For example;

· Thank you. That was the most fun thing I’ve done in ages.

But….there are a lot of people out there who want to keep the rules all regular and instead put –est on the end of fun, for example:

· Thank you. That was the funnest thing I’ve done in ages.

There – even my Microsoft Word has underlined funnest in red because it thinks it is wrong. But you’ll hear it all around you.

The same goes for stupid. A two syllable adjective, so the textbooks say it should be the most stupid but the reality is people say the stupidest.

I think grammar textbooks and teachers have to catch up with reality and teach language as people speak it, not as they think it should be spoken.

Now, on to the comprehension text which is about different world records, not just normal world records like the tallest man or the heaviest baby but some of the strangest, weirdest records. List, or read, and see how many superlative adjectives you can find in the text. Good luck!

The Guinness Book of Records

A new world record was broken recently. The smallest man in the world is now Chandra Bahadur Dangi from Nepal.  This, and other world records are checked and recorded by the Guinness Book of Records in the UK. If you visit the website, buy the book or even watch the TV show as I did as a kid 100 years ago, you can learn some of the most incredible things. Not just the important measurements and statistics, but how really strange some people are.

It seems a contradiction but the Guinness Book of Records has many common or normal records. For instance, the tallest living man in the world is Sultan Kosen from Turkey. He is an amazing 2.43m tall. The fastest boat in the world is the Spirit of Australia with a record of 555kmh. The heaviest baby ever recorded was 10.8kg in 1879 in Ohio, America. Wow! But, these are all ‘average’ records.

Guinness also records some of the weirdest, most wonderful records you can imagine. And I’m impressed by two things: 1) that the person (or people) are strong enough, clever enough, dedicated enough, etc, to do this wonderful and weird thing, and 2) that they actually WANT to do it. I’ll give you some examples. The fastest time to enter a suitcase - I don’t mean just to open a suitcase, but to actually open and get into a suitcase and then close it. The fastest time is 5.43 seconds, held by Leslie Tipton.  But – why? Why measure how fast you can get into a suitcase?

Or how about the longest distance travelled, keeping a table lifted with your teeth? Apparently the longest distance, etc., was achieved by Georges Christen who walked 11 m with a 12 kg table in his teeth while a 50 kg woman sat on it. That’s just crazy! And…Thailand is home to the record for living with scorpions the longest. Kanchana Ketkaew lived in a small glass room with over 5000 scorpions for 33 days and nights. Why?  The UK is home to the loudest purr made by a pet cat. Hurrah! That is important! Apparently, the cat, Smokey reached 67.7 dB. Maybe that’s the cutest record. Smokey was so relaxed because it had been brushed, stroked, and fed slices of ham. Well, I might purr loudly too then. The most plates broken with one finger in one minute is 102 by Fan Weipeng in China and the most needles put into a head is 2009 by Wei Shengu also from China. I don’t get it. Why do people want to do these things?

I don’t know what the most bizarre record is but maybe the ‘funnest’, most entertaining record is for human mattress dominoes, where a group of people, each person tied to a mattress, stand up like a long line of dominoes, and then slowly fall over, one by one. The record for the largest human mattress dominoes was for 850 people in New Orleans, America this year. Sounds like brilliant fun! I could go on and on about the craziness but this would become the most boring grammar podcast instead of the most interesting, so I’ll stop now.