Page 367 - Basic Japanese

犬は馬より小さいです。

Inu wa uma yori chīsai desu.
Dogs are smaller than horses. (Dogs, more than
horses, are small.)

In such a sentence, you do not ordinarily need the noun
hō ‘alternative.’ But if you want to emphasize the subject of

the comparison, you usually do it by adding not just the
emphatic subject particle ga but (no) hō:

TYPE 2:

犬の方が馬より小さいです。

Inu no hō ga uma yori chīsai desu.
DOGS are smaller than horses.

You can then change the word order around to give a
slightly different emphasis:

TYPE 3:
馬より犬の方が小さいです。

Uma yori inu no hō ga chīsai desu.
It’s DOGS that are smaller than horses.

You can set off the first expression uma yori ‘(more) than

horses’ as the topic with the attention-releasing particle wa,

in order to concentrate the emphasis still more on the
subject of the comparison:

TYPE 4:

馬よりは犬の方が小さいです。

Uma yori wa inu no hō ga chīsai desu.
(What are) smaller than horses are dogs.