Difference Between Then and Than
Than and Then are two words that are often confused as one and the same but then is an adverb and is used to indicate the usual time in the past and future tenses.
On the other hand, preposition ‘than’ is used just before the second part of a comparison. ‘Than’ is used in the fifth case or ablative case as in the sentence ‘the king is weaker than his opponent. “In the sentence given you can see that the word that is used just before the second part of the comparison made between the king and his opponent.
On the other hand the word then indicates the time as in the sentence ‘I was young then. “In the sentence given the word then indicates the past where the speaker was younger than he is now. This is the important difference between the two words.
‘Then’ is used to end dialogues as in the sentence ‘well then, I shall leave’. One has to carefully use the two words ‘than’ an ‘then’ according to context.
It is interesting to note that than is sometimes used to show that an incident happened after another as in the sentence ’no sooner I got into the train than it started departing’.
In the same way then is at times used to express the sense ‘at that time’ as in the sentence ‘then I heard a loud noise’. Sometimes the word is used to suggest additional information on something like the sentence ‘ at times he experiences high blood pressure’. In such cases you can see the presence of the conjunction ‘and’ too.
‘Then’ is used to end the dialogue as in the sentence ‘well then, I should leave’. Now we should be able to use these words correctly.