Does the construction differ from English ?

Question

My head is whirling after studying this long article, especially using the adverbs mieux / pire for making a general statement with être eg Ta télé est bien mais la mienne est mieux.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but surely in English you use the adjectival form here? You don’t say "yours is well …mine is better" but "yours is good…mine is better".

I think there is scope to highlight this more fully. [Edit: and indeed the Lawless article on Bien vs Bon that Chris referred to 4 years ago, actually says that bien is an adjective when used with state-of-being verbs]

Accepted Answer

Hi Anne, 
This topic brings a lot of questions.
You might find this video explaining the difference between the use of bien / mieux and bon /meilleur useful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW2TuJDWmfc
Hope it helps!

Answer

Here's a way to help you understand the usage of mieux in these cases:

When you're saying, "My TV is better than yours", what you actually mean to say is "My TV is doing its job better than yours." In this case you need the adverb mieux because it modifies the action "doing its job".

Answer

Thanks for the replies. I think I need to get completely clear when to use bon or bien / mauvais or mal, then the comparatives and superlatives are less problematic, as they follow naturally [Edit: apart from when to use mal, plus mal and when mal, pire]