What is the difference between sämre and värre ?

In English, both “sämre” and “värre” mean “worse,” the comparative form of something bad. But in Swedish, there are two kinds of “worse,” so called “sämre” and värre,” that are used in different contexts. When we compare something that can be good but also can be bad, we use “sämre”. We use “värre” when you compare two bad things, which can never be good, which can only be worse.

Lets say a teacher might have students. There can be good students, better students, bad students, and worse students. There can be good students, in terms of performance, such as doing the homework, watching the grammar video (when the teacher says so), attending språkcafé and so on,  and there can be students that are less good, who just claim that they have “started” seeing the grammar video, and always say that they will attend språkcafé on next week.  When we compare something which can be good and something which can be bad, we use sämre. Equally, we can apply it to cars or anything else, that can be good and bad. Let’s say you compare two cars, Volvo and Mercedes, and one of them is apparently better. If one of them is better, then one of them must be less good than the other, or so to say, worse than the other. In that case, you will use sämre.

In Swedish, we have another “worse”, so to say “värre”. We use “värre” when you compare two bad things, which can never be good, which can only be worse. Let’s say you speak about diseases and compare what is worse, cancer or cardiopathy. A deseas, by default, cannot be good; that is why we are going to use “värre” in this case.

Equally, we can apply it to “catastrophe.” For example, compare two earthquakes: 2011 in Japan and 2024 in Turkey.  The earthquake, be default is not good, so it can be only worse, “värre”.

“Sämre” is the comparative form for “dålig”, while “värre” is the comparative form for “illa”. To observe, “dålig” in Swedish is an adjective and refers to: bad, poor, unsatisfactory, insufficient, inferior, and inadequate. On the other hand, the word “illa” is an adverb, which means “badly” sometimes as a predicative complement, and means “bad”. 

• dålig – sämre – sämst
• illa – värre – värst