Comparison
Comparison needs no special grammar. Put mas, nonmas or sam in front of the quality — they are ordinary modifiers — and mark what you are comparing against with vons ‘from, than’.
| subject | ri | mas | quality | vons | standard |
| Pikotika | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Tis ri mas pona vons nontis. | This one is better than that one. |
| Tis ri nonmas pesaneses vons nontis. | It's less important than that one. |
| Tis ri sam pona vons yerkosa. | It's as good as it was. |
Marking the standard with ‘from’ is the commonest strategy in the world's languages — Latin, Turkish, Japanese, Russian, Arabic and Hindi all do it — so for many learners this is already familiar. For English speakers: just think of vons as meaning than or as.
The superlative is just ‘than all’
There is no superlative form to learn. vons pan compares against everything, which is what a superlative means.
It's the oldest. (Literally: It's more old than all.)
Tis ri mas vetus vons pan.‘Less’ has two correct forms
Where the quality has a natural opposite, most speakers just use it. Where it doesn't, use nonmas.
| Pikotika | Meaning |
|---|---|
| mas marum | worse (more bad) |
| mas piko | smaller |
| nonmas pesaneses | less important |
| nonmas pesaneses vons pan | the least important |
The standard is usually left out
If it's obvious what you're comparing against, drop the vons phrase. This is the commonest form in ordinary speech.
| Pikotika | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Eko ri mas pona in tistempo. | I'm better now. |
| mas meka kamar | a bigger room |
Telling a comparison from a plain ‘from’
vons is also the everyday preposition ‘from’, so one sentence can hold both:
From the airport, the train is faster than the bus.
Vons ventokaroroko, metarrinekaro ri mas veros vons muromokaro.The rule is mechanical, and you can apply it the moment you hear the word, without waiting to see how the sentence ends:
vons means than/as if it comes after an adjective or verb modified by mas, nonmas or sam. Otherwise it means from or, as a noun, it means source.
In the example above, the first vons is the plain preposition from. The second one is than, because it follows mas veros.
Try it yourself
- Tu ri tene a mas meka kamar, ker?
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‘Do you have a bigger room?’
- Rotunpomo, vons surtera.
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‘Apples, from the mountains.’
- ‘I like tea more than coffee.’ (Like is kusta,
tea is arpoaku, and coffee is
neropipe.)
Show answer
Eko ri mas kusta a arpoaku vons neropipe.