Degrees of Comparison.
There are three degrees of comparison, as in English:
The Positive, as bona, good; bela, beautiful; granda, big, great.
The Comparative is formed by placing pli (more) or malpli (less) before the positive, thus: bona, good—pli bona, better; bela, beautiful—malpli bela, less beautiful. The comparison may be heightened by using multe (much), thus: multe pli (or malpli) bela.
Than is translated by ol, thus: pli (or malpli) bela ol…, more (or less) beautiful than…
The Superlative degree is formed by using plej (most) with the positive; as bela, beautiful—plej bela, most beautiful.
Of with a superlative is translated by the preposition el (out of). La plej granda el ĉiuj, the greatest of all.
The more…the more, the less…the less, are translated by means of the particles ju and des. Thus: Ju pli oni studas, des pli oni lernas, the more one studies, the more one learns. Ju pli mi kun li parolas, des malpli mi lin estimas, the more I speak to him, the less I esteem him.
Cardinal Numbers.
The Cardinal Numbers may be used as nouns, by the addition of the ending -o. Thus, unuo, a unit; trio, a trio; dekduo, a dozen; dudeko, a score; cento, a hundred; milo, a thousand. Note that miliono is ALWAYS used as a noun.
When a number or any other word is used as a noun of quantity, the noun which follows it must be preceded by the quantitative preposition da:—Dekduo da ovoj, a dozen eggs; milo da soldatoj, a thousand soldiers (one might of course also say dek du ovoj, mil soldatoj); du metroj da drapo, two metres of cloth; tri funtoj da sukero, three pounds of sugar.
Ordinal Numbers.
The Ordinal Numbers are formed by adding the adjectival ending -a to the Cardinals. In Compound Ordinal Numbers, the groups of hundreds, tens, units, etc., are joined by hyphens, and the ending -a is added to the unit numeral. Thus: unu, one—unua, first; tria, third; dek-unua, eleventh; tridek-sepa, thirty-seventh; kvarcent-sesdek-dua, 462nd, and so on. Written in figures these would be 1a, 3a, 11a, 37a, 462a. The Ordinals are of course inflected like adjectives. (See page [77].)