In the preface to the next reading I'm about to do, my textbook (日本語総まとめ　N3) says that

BよりAのほうが大きい means B is bigger than A

But in Genki1 I was taught exactly the opposite, i.e.

AのほうがBより(property) means A is more (property) than B

There was even a note saying that reversing the order of Aのほうが and Bより didn't change the meaning of the sentence.

So which is it? Is one of the textbooks wrong or am I just missing something?

Both ways around are fine but...

Quote:BよりAのほうが大きい means B is bigger than A

is wrong. It would mean A is bigger than B. The order doesn't matter but the より marks the part being compared to, like the 'than' in 'is bigger than'.

私よりAちゃんのほうが可愛い A-chan is cuter than me.
オレのほうがあいつより強い I'm stronger than that guy.
電車より車のほうが酔いやすい Cars make [me] feel sick more than trains do.
電車のほうが車より早く目的地に着く Train arrives at the destination quicker than car.

Thank you

I'm just answering because I want to see if I'm right, so don't take what I say as correct.

That said, I translate より as than/contrasting to. And より always goes with the thing you are comparing to. So BよりAのほうが大きい translates to something like 'compared to B, A is bigger.' I've seen it reversed (but I don't think you can use the のほう) something like AがBより大きい. This translates to something like regarding A, B is bigger.

This relates to the first big thing that I realized about Japanese grammar. Changing the order of Japanese doesn't change the meaning as it does in English. Japanese uses particles to define subject and object while English uses order. Consequently, you can move around subject and object in a Japanese sentence without changing the meaning because the particles move with them and define their function.

I hope I got that right. If I got anything wrong, please let me know.

yogert909 Wrote:I've seen it reversed (but I don't think you can use the のほう) something like AがBより大きい. This translates to something like regarding A, B is bigger.

The other way around, AFAIK. "A -rather than B- is big", thus, A is bigger than B.

Oops, sorry. I wrote that wrong. I should have wrote AがBより大きい translates to something like 'regarding A, it is bigger than B'.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Since written form is very different from spoken form in pacing and whatnot, YMMV, but.

砂より,....アイスの方が良い. that ... being where a fairly long pause goes when spoken, because in spoken form, you can/do usually leave it out the whole modified by よりpart out.

With the whole "not emphasizing the negative" idea. Emphasize the preference, avoid the less preferred y separating it or eliminating it altogether from a sentence.

yogert909 Wrote:Oops, sorry. I wrote that wrong. I should have wrote AがBより大きい translates to something like 'regarding A, it is bigger than B'.

That use of が is wrong-ish.
it's
Aは
or
Aの方が

the distinction is that the point of the sentence is not a description of an specific object, but a statement of comparison of two objects, even if the comparison is implied by the ○○より part being skipped.

が and は are tough to nail down. There used to be a corner on a TV Variety show that could teach the proper use of は in a couple of viewings, because every time possibly cheating partner used は about some potential 浮気相手, it was clear they were denying infidelity with that one person (while at the same time unintentionally clearly stating they were cheating with someone else). It taught me how to use は so that I could get away with 浮気 without giving myself up under interrogation.

Aが here is not wrong. It's just not the best choice.

Yep, I was trying to run that by the roomie (Japanese national, college educated, works as a writer), and until she saw it written, she could not even recognize it was off, at all.

In trying to figure out she did not react like I did, a couple of things fell out. First, spoken it does not much matter. Once she saw some written examples though, she said 何か歯痒い, and in trying to figure out what was 歯痒い, the most she could say is that it pulled the meaning of the sentence away from a simple comparison in some instances, but only in some.

As we went back and forth, with all sorts of example words plugged into the slots, we realized that with the broad class of nouns (like Dogs and cats and bigger/smaller) rather than specific examples single instance examples, the wrong-ish-ness of the thing tended to disappear completely.

So it was not はがゆい, but more ががゆい．It's American joke!