思ったより、高いね -> That's more expensive than I thought. これの方が高いね -> This is more expensive. 毎日、少しずつ勉強する方が良いと思う -> I think it's better to study a little every day.
の方が、方が means "something's way/direction is" literaly. You don't really say "more" or "less", it's closer to "that is" or "this is" (and then it become more or less depending on the context). It's just that japanese use that image of direction to express that rather than "more" or "less" directly.
より on the other hand is a particule. It is a bit difficult to translate but basically, it marks something as a point of reference kinda. And depending on the context, you could translate by "compared to" that reference you're talking about.
So they really are completely independant. And the order doesn't matter too.
思ったより、これの方が高いね -> Compared to what I though, this is expensive. これの方が高いね、思ったより -> This is expensive, compared to what I though.
Oh so they are both interchangeable, but why would someone make different grammar expressions for the same meaning? Btw how would you make this sentence smaller : - 妹と弟とお父さんとお母さんとトマトとバナナとケーキとラーメンとすしを食べた。(I ate tomatoes, bananas, cake, ramen, and sushi with my little sister, my little brother, my father, and my mother.)
I've not really been through all of N5, and I'm not sure if this concerns N4 at that anyway because I'll see some subjects ahead of myself sometimes, but I have the basic understanding of particles and what you can do with them helps to break it down. Memorizing what they mean is another thing. I digress though.
There are many resources I've looked at over the years, and I come across this sometimes, so I'll have a revisit - To sum up the basic question of if there is any difference, one thing I know is that when it comes to combining words with particles and terms, most times it's not really going to make a difference to the sentence. So there is nothing sophisticated about this.
It's still grammatical, but you're saying it in a different order, which at least to me, this is what it looks like. Since your concern is just 2 things in a different order, changing the order doesn't change the meaning. It's just saying the same thing in two different ways.
Mentally, I would break it down like this:
より is to say "than". Easy.
As for の方が, interestingly, it can get omitted. Which by this point is unsurprising. If it is in there, I have also seen different variants. In other cases, の and が is often interchanged with different particles, and even at times, の is omitted. You're really left with 方 to marvel. So, to make it easy, you should know the 方 kanji is to indicate direction. That's helpful. In this case, in reference to the thing before 方. If there any other particles, it just reinforces the relationship with the comparison. Regardless of the "helper" particles involved, this indicates your point of reference.
So, by this point, you can just figure it out regardless of where they're put in a sentence (or not). As long as you know the basic meaning of these parts, it easily tells you each thing's role.
why would someone make different grammar expressions for the same meaning?
It's the same expression, just in different orders. You can also say "Compared to me, you're better" or "You're better compared to me" in English. But please keep in mind that grammar isn't "made" so "why would anyone do it like this" is the wrong approach to take.
Btw how would you make this sentence smaller : - 妹と弟とお父さんとお母さんとトマトとバナナとケーキとラーメンとすしを食べた。(I ate tomatoes, bananas, cake, ramen, and sushi with my little sister, my little brother, my father, and my mother.)
Oh so they are both interchangeable, but why would someone make different grammar expressions for the same meaning? Btw how would you make this sentence smaller : - 妹と弟とお父さんとお母さんとトマトとバナナとケーキとラーメンとすしを食べた。(I ate tomatoes, bananas, cake, ramen, and sushi with my little sister, my little brother, my father, and my mother.)
Because someone decided that it was better to learn より～の方が as a pattern. Because they though it would be easier for you to learn it like that. With that pattern you can also translate it to something closer to how english express comparison.
Downside is that later, you will encounter other patterns that may confuse you. But in theory, you should be able to understand them by yourself by that time (In theory.. in practice, well...). Or have someone to explain them to you.
Most grammar ressources are about hidding/simplifying things for you until you get some foundation. And people make choice while doing that. But those choice doesn't work always perfectly for everyone. Like me. I was confused by より～の方が until I learned that より was a particle.
Btw how would you make this sentence smaller : - 妹と弟とお父さんとお母さんとトマトとバナナとケーキとラーメンとすしを食べた。(I ate tomatoes, bananas, cake, ramen, and sushi with my little sister, my little brother, my father, and my mother.)
this ends up kinda sounding like you ate your family lol. i think commas would help a lot here, but to restructure it... 両親と兄妹と一緒に食べたのは、トマトやバナナやケーキ、それにラーメンや寿司だ。putting a "と一緒に" or "と共に" between listing family members and listing food already helps a ton (cuts out ambiguity), and using や to list instead of と feels more natural and means you can be a little more imprecise about it (など and とか for example). for my version i moved the 食べた to the subject because it felt like listing the different foods was more the "point" of the sentence, like you're telling somebody what you ate with your family. i also arbitrarily split up the fruits/sweet foods from the meals. and this part is obvious but you can shorten the family members to 両親 and 兄妹 or even just 家族 as someone earlier in this thread did.
i'm pretty sure mine is correct enough, but i don't do long lists very often, so if something's weird about it let me know. also waffled between using だ and だった at the end. japanese is a lot looser about tense than english etc, and often swaps tenses even in the same sentence. i thiiink the subject being past tense is enough, but afaik だった isn't wrong either. probably nitpicking here lol. there's no real system for subject verb agreement anyway.
