Comparative method (linguistics)

So, you know how you have friends who speak Spanish, and some who speak French, and some who speak English?

Well, the comparative method is when people who study languages compare those different languages to see how they're similar and different.

Let's say you want to figure out how the word for "water" is spelled in Spanish and French. You might notice that in Spanish, it's spelled "agua" and in French, it's spelled "eau". Even though they look really different, they still sound kind of similar! That's a similarity that we've found by using the comparative method.

We could also compare something like grammar, or how the different languages put their words together. For example, in English we might say "I am happy", while in Spanish they might say "Estoy feliz". Even though the words are different, they still mean the same thing! That's another thing we can discover by comparing languages.

By using the comparative method, people who study languages can learn a lot about how they developed and evolved over time. So next time you hear someone speaking a different language than you, maybe you'll think about how it's similar to or different from the language you speak!