Answer:
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Here is a table of all of the irregular comparatives in Spanish:
INGLÉS COMPARATIVOS IRREGULARES
Older Viejo → Mayor
Younger Joven → Menor
Better (adjective) Bueno → Mejor
Better (adverb) Bien → Mejor
Worse (adjective) Malo → Peor
Worse (adverb) Mal → Peor
Here are some examples:
English: Laura speaks Spanish better than me.
Español: Laura habla español mejor que yo.
English: My mother is older than my father.
Español: Mi madre es mayor que mi padre.
English: Star Wars 5 is worse than Star Wars 6.
Español: La Guerra de las Galaxias 5 es peor que la Guerra de las Galaxias 6.
English: Miguel is the youngest of all of his friends.
Español: Miguel es el menor de todos sus amigos.
English: These are the best strawberries I have tasted in my life.
Español: Estas son las mejores fresas que he probado en mi vida.
One really important point to notice with this last example is that mejor has to come before the noun. This is an often-overlooked rule of Spanish adjective word order.
Más vs mucho – Common Errors with Spanish Comparatives
With comparisons in Spanish, the hardest part seems to be saying that something is “much better”, “much more interesting”, or someone is “much taller”, “much faster” etc.
From experience, this is where we hear the most number of mistakes made with students in our Spanish Classes.
So, when should we use más and when should we use mucho?
The answer is: we need to add mucho before of all of the previous phrases mentioned in this post.
So, if we have a regular comparative “más alto“, then if we want to say “much taller”, we need to say “mucho más alto“.
Conversely, if we have an irregular comparative mejor, then if we want to say “much better”, we need to say “mucho mejor“.
And, to emphasize this last point, you need to avoid “más mejor“, “más mayor” etc.
Here are a few examples:
English: I have a colleague that is much smarter than me.
Español: Tengo un compañero que es mucho más listo que yo.
English: The churros in Spain are much better than the churros in Australia.
Español: Los churros en España son mucho mejores que los churros en Australia.
English: His brother is much younger than him.
Español: Su hermano es mucho menor que él.
English: These two students are much taller than the rest of the class.
Español: Estos dos estudiantes son mucho más altos que el resto de la clase.
Notice with this last example that we say “mucho más altos” and not “muchos más altos“.