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[kittydesade]

Than is rendered by чем, which is always preceded by a comma.

Вы говорите по-русски лучше, чем мы. You speak Russian better than we do.
В Москве холоднее, чем в Санкт-Петербурге. It's colder in Moscow than in St Petersburg

Russians often replace чем + nominative case with genitive (dropping the чем).

Вы говорите по-русски лучше, чем мы. Вы говорите по-русски лучше нас.

The adverbs гораздо/much and ещё/even strengthen the comparison.

Вы говорите по-русски гораздо лучше, чем мы. You speak Russian much better than we do.
Вы говорите по-русски ещё лучше, чем мы. You speak Russian even better than we do.

If you want to put a comparative phrase in a case other than the nominative, then you must use the comparative более/more, plus an adjective in the appropriate case. The opposite is менее, less.

Лена ходит на более поздние сеансы, чем мы с тобой. Lena goes to later showings than you and I do.
Он рассказал нам о менее интересных фильмах, чем ты. He told us about less interesting films than you.

If you want to say something is the most -- the biggest, the most popular, the cheapest, and so forth -- then use the superlative adjective самый plus the adjective in its noncomparative form. Both adjectives modify the noun according to gender, number, and case.

Я видела этот фильм в самом краснивом кинотеатре в Петербурге. I saw that movie in the most beautiful movie theatre in St Petersburg.
Лена всегда ходит на самые поздние сеансы. Lena always goes to the latest showing.

You can say best two ways: самый хороший or самый лучший.



Yeah, I know you guys are going to stare at me in shock for this, but I think I'm going to actually stop at ten languages. Formally knowing, that is, not entirely studying. But if my brain weasels and caterpillars and things are threatening to overwhelm me now, it's just going to get worse when I start adding a seventh, eighth, and ninth. So. That, and with the next three, adding Hindi, a form of Arabic (probably Standard), that covers most of the rest of the language groups I want to hit, leaving only Mandarin or Cantonese which I still won't tackle without a teacher. (I'm not counting Italian or Portuguese because I can probably acquire those more easily if I have to, given a background in Latin, French, and Spanish, but it'll also be harder to separate. Portuguese exists to torment me, anyway.)

That said, I'm discovering a curious side effect about talking about caterpillar brain and brainweasels so much: they become less powerful. Possibly like any boogeyman, or at least, like a lot of boogeymen (the other kind get more powerful when you name them). I'm aware that I have this annoying problem or tendency or what have you, and I can stomp all over it. Like a boss. Because I'm awesome like that.

It's still fucking freezing. I have a grumpy. It was nice and warm on the weekend, good walking weather, and now during the week it's 20 degrees fahrenheit. What's up with that, I ask you? I'm freezing my cute little toes off, here, and I want my spring, dammit. We turned the sun back on almost a week ago.

Tickets for Beethoven's Last Night have been accomplished. That show is going to be so badass. It'll be interesting to see a non-Christmas show from them, even if what I really want to see is Night Castle. But, we'll start with Beethoven! And they've said they're only going to do this a few years, so this will probably be my one chance. It makes sense. I mean, with the kind of scale of productions they do, I wouldn't want to have two tours running, they'd be touring most of the year. Or prepping to tour. Eek.

Did a bunch of shit like a boss yesterday. Hopefully today will be just as rocking. I did ALL my damn languages, my guitar, got writing done, made my lunch on time, did my day job work, exercises, did some picking up, did some dicking around with GIMP, and got a decent amount of sleep. Small victories make big ones.