Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

The same, similar

467b

The same as

or the same + noun phrase + as are used to say whether things are

identical:

Most shopping malls are not 

the same as the ones back home in Chicago.

That woman over there has just bought 

the same video recorder as ours.

They’re both wearing 

the same jacket as my husband.

Similar

means ‘sharing many characteristics but not identical’. It is followed by to:

Your garden is 

similar to ours, long and narrow.

What he’s done is 

similar to what we’re trying to do.

✪

Than

is not used with same or similar, because than indicates a difference:

Her Walkman is 

the same as the one I used to have.

(Her Walkman is the same than the one I used to have.)

Your kitchen is 

similar to ours.

(Your kitchen is similar than ours.)

Same

may be intensified using the following adverbs:

Your jacket’s 

exactly the same as mine.

We did 

more or less the same as we always do, just toured round and stayed in

bed-and-breakfast places.

almost

exactly

just

more or less

much

nearly

precisely

roughly