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I'm trying to understand if the both sentences are correct, and if they are, what is the difference between them.

Her mother is more modest than her.

Her mother is more modes than she is.

For me, they look the same but I am not sure about it, and I don't have any lead to check it except to ask here.

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  • It's colloquial versus super correct.
    – Lambie
    Commented Apr 24, 2018 at 16:37

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The sentence "Her mother is more modest than she is" is carried out to its logical conclusion. The shorter version may be "Her mother is more modest than she".

With the pronoun "her" after "than" the only way to logically finish the sentence to me would be "Her mother is more modest than her father (is)".

So, even if the "than her" variant is not incorrect and may be found in the GoogleBooks—here, for example—a learner myself, I wouldn't choose "than her" to finish the comparison unless it is "I like him more than her" or "She likes me more than her".

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  • Your second paragraph is not strictly correct, but you make a very good point with the third paragraph. I'm just going to cut the difference and upvote.
    – wizzwizz4
    Commented Apr 24, 2018 at 19:30
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Her mother is more modest than she is.

This is correct, I think, but I don't know the name of the phrase "she is" so I can't check.

Her mother is more modest than her.

This is certainly used colloquially, but is it grammatical? "She" is a pronoun, so in order for "her" to be usable in this situation it must also be usable as a pronoun. To Wiktionary!

The form of she used after a preposition or as the object of a verb; that woman, that ship, etc. — Wiktionary

Hooray! This is correct! This means that both of your example sentences are equally correct.

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