Quick question, need a quick answer...thanks

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Permalink Reply by Frank on January 10, 2010 at 5:26pm

Un email est plus rapide qu'envoyer une lettre

(rapidement = quickly - adverb. rapide is the adjective).

And by using this sentence: Adèle est la plus grande de la famille. How would say something is the best?

...est le meilleur (masculine, singular)
...est la meilleure (feminine, singular)
...sont les meilleurs (masculine, plural)
...sont les meilleures (feminine, plural)

Ce forum est le meilleur :)

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Permalink Reply by Frank Lampard on January 10, 2010 at 5:34pm

Thank you again.
One last question how would you say something is better than....?

Thanks

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EducatorPermalink Reply by stu harris on January 10, 2010 at 5:53pm

Luke, the phrase is "mieux que"

ex: Je trouve que Facebook est mieux que LiveJournal. == I think Facebook is better than LJ

The strange thing is that in a different context "mieux" means best, not better.

ex: De tous les fruits, j'aime les peches le mieux. == Of all fruit, I like peaches best.

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Permalink Reply by Frank on January 10, 2010 at 6:08pm

Mmm... "j'aime les pêches le mieux" sounds weird to my hears. Do you mean "le plus"?

J'aime le plus les pèches (which is equivalent to "J'aime plus les pèches" with "plus" pronounced like "pluss" not "plu").

"le mieux" is sometimes used in order to mean the best, but only in some specific cases (and this is definitely colloquial).
"Ce que j'aime le mieux c'est..."
"Parmi les fruits, le mieux c'est la pêche"
"Le mieux, c'est de partir".

But Luke, don't pay attention to these weird cases right now.

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EducatorPermalink Reply by stu harris on January 10, 2010 at 6:35pm

Frank, Hmmmm, you're likely to be right. I'm sure I remember being taught that mieux=better but le mieux=best. I'd still say that in conversation but it may be an outdated construct.

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EducatorPermalink Reply by stu harris on January 10, 2010 at 7:17pm

In fact, isn't it the same for "pire" (worse) and "le pire" (worst)??

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Permalink Reply by Frank on January 10, 2010 at 7:40pm

Hi Stu,

Indeed, "pire" is worse and "le pire" is worst.

But to get back to your example: "De tous les fruits, j'aime les peches le mieux."

"De tous les fruits, j'aime les pêches le pire" wouldn't make any sense.
De tous les fruits, j'aime les pêches le moinswould.
Incidentally, le moins is the opposite of le plus, not the opposite of le meilleur.

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EducatorPermalink Reply by stu harris on January 10, 2010 at 7:53pm

OK, then let's agree, all these words follow the same rule:

moins > le moins
plus > le plus
mieux > le mieux
pire > le pire

They all progress from comparitive to superlative.

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on January 10, 2010 at 8:29pm

Something else to add to the melting pot. Strictly speaking, the word bon has the comparative meilleur, and the word bien has the comparative mieux.

So to some extent how you say "better" in French depends on how you would have said "good" in the corresponding sentence.

Roughly:

- bien tends to mean "good" in the sense of "convenient", "comfortable", "a convenient choice", and so mieux tends to mean "a better/more convenient choice"
- bon tends to mean "good" in the sense of "good quality", "competent", so meilleur tends to mean "of better quality", "with better skills"
- but there's also a little bit of overlap between bon and bien (pretty much either can mean "good" in the sense of "kind"; arguably bon is closer to "suitable" than "comfortable/convenient", but there's some overlap between these notions), therefore there's sometimes overlap between meilleur and mieux

So you would tend in principle to get choices such as the following:

ce livre est meilleur que l'autre
this book is better than the other one (i.e. better written, more easy to understand etc)
ce livre est mieux que l'autre (pour les vacances)
this book is better than the other one (for holidays) (i.e. a better choice of read in that particular situation)

However, as I mentioned, the truth is there is a little bit of overlap between mieux and meilleur, and you may well find that speakers don't always make such a clear-cut distinction.

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Permalink Reply by Frank Lampard on January 11, 2010 at 1:10pm

Thanks for all the help guys. :)

Does the changing of meilleur depend on the word before or after?

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Permalink Reply by Frank on January 11, 2010 at 1:23pm

Hi Luke,

It depends on the noun it refers to, no matter where it is.

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