Spanish: An Essential Grammar

Pedro tiene tantas camisas Pedro has as many shirts

como Luis. as Luis.

No hace tanto calor en It isn’t so hot in Cantabria.

Cantabria.

Note: Tanto/a/os/as... + queindicates a result, ‘so much/many... that’: Bebió

tantas copas que se emborrachó‘He drank so many glasses that he got drunk’.

Comparisons involving verbs

With comparisons of inequalityrelating to the action of a verb, the pattern

is verb + más/menos + que:

Susana trabaja más/menos Susana works more/less than

que tú. you.

In comparisons of equality, the pattern is verb + tanto (in this case invari-

able) + como:

Susana trabaja tanto como tú. Susana works as much as you.

Uses of de aftermás andmenos

Before numbers

Demust replace queas the link word meaning ‘than’ after másor menos

in comparisons that state ‘more’ or ‘less’ than a number or numerical

expression (such as ‘half’, ‘dozen’), or before other words that imply an

amount or quantity:

No vengas más tarde de las Don’t come any later than

ocho. eight o’clock.

Murieron menos de la mitad Fewer than half the passengers

de los pasajeros. died.

Vino menos gente de la Fewer people than expected

esperada. came.

Note: Care should be taken to distinguish between no más de‘not more than’, and

no más que‘only’: No distribuyeron más de diez kilos‘They did not distribute more

than ten kilos’, and No distribuyeron más que diez kilos‘They only distributed ten

kilos’. See 26.7(a).

26.4.1

26.4

26.3

1111

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1011

1

12111

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

20111

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

30111

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

40

41111

Uses of de

after másand

menos

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