Spanish Superlatives with “más” and “menos” – Learn and Practice

Welcome 😊 to our grammar lesson on superlatives adjectives in Spanish using the words más and menos.

With superlatives, for example, instead of saying that something is just “beautiful”, we can say it is “the most beautiful” or “the least beautiful”.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to make sentences using these superlatives.

You will also find a Quiz and Exercises to practice.

Forming superlatives

Regular cases

Almost all adjectives form superlatives in a regular way. We just need to apply one of these two formulas:

• For “the most ___” ➡️ el / la / los / las + “más” + adjective
• For “the least ___” ➡️ el / la / los / las + “menos” + adjective

Este coche es el más moderno.
This car is the most modern.

Laura es la menos inteligente de nuestra clase.
Laura is the least intelligent in our class.

Somos los menos altos de nuestro grupo.
We are the least tall in our group.

Estas sillas son las más cómodas.
These chairs are the most comfortable.

Irregular cases

There are some adjectives that have special superlative forms:

Adjective	Superlative	Plural
bueno (good)	mejor (best)	mejores
malo (bad)	peor (worst)	peores
pequeño (small)	menor (smaller)	menores
joven (young)	menor (younger)	menores
grande (big)	mayor (bigger)	mayores
viejo (old)	mayor (older)	mayores

When we make sentences with these irregular superlatives, we don’t need the words “más” and “menos”.

Instead, we use this shorter formula ➡️ el / la / los / las + irregular form

Mi móvil es el peor.
My cell phone is the worst.

Ellos son los mayores de la familia.
They are the oldest in the family.

Inserting a noun in the formulas

It is possible to insert a noun in the formulas if we want to.

For the regular cases, we can place a noun right after the article:

Este es el coche más moderno.
This is the most modern car.

Estas son las sillas más cómodas.
These are the most comfortable chairs.

For the irregular cases, sometimes it sounds better to place the noun after the article:

Ellos son las personas mayores de la familia.
They are the oldest people in the family.

And sometimes after the superlative form:

Mi móvil es el peor móvil.
My cell phone is the worst cell phone.

Practice

Quiz

Take this short Quiz about superlatives:

Exercise

Fill the gaps with the necessary words to form superlatives. Click on the gray spaces to see the solutions:

1) Laura es la menos egoísta de todos nosotros.
Laura is the least selfish of us all.

2) Soy el más inteligente de mi familia.
I am the most intelligent in my family. (said by a man)

3) Este coche es el mejor .
This car is the best.

4) Tus amigas son las mejores .
Your friends are the best. (female friends)

5) Estos móviles son los peores .
These cell phones are the worst ones.

Another type of superlative: with the ending “-ísimo”

There is another grammar construction in Spanish we also call superlative. It is when we express an adjective to an extreme degree, with an ending such as “-ísimo”.

We explain that in a separate lesson: Spanish superlatives with “-ísimo”