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German: Comparatives

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Gemuse
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4083 days ago

818 posts - 1189 votes 
Speaks: English
Studies: German

 
 Message 1 of 11
22 March 2014 at 5:25pm | IP Logged 
Es liegt ein schmutziger Teppich.

Why do we have "dirtier" here? Dirtier than what?

I know, I'm trying to map it to English, which doesnt work. I'm just trying to get the
connotation here.

Edited by Gemuse on 22 March 2014 at 5:26pm

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Josquin
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Germany
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Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish
Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian

 
 Message 2 of 11
22 March 2014 at 5:54pm | IP Logged 
It's not the comparative, it's the masculine nominative (mixed declination):

ein schmutziger Teppich = a dirty carpet
eine schmutzige Wand = a dirty wall
ein schmutziges Fenster = a dirty window
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Gemuse
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4083 days ago

818 posts - 1189 votes 
Speaks: English
Studies: German

 
 Message 3 of 11
22 March 2014 at 10:40pm | IP Logged 
Aaaaw man. What a basic mistake.
Live and learn Gemuse, live and learn.
Thanks Josquin!
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outcast
Bilingual Heptaglot
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China
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Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin
Studies: Korean

 
 Message 4 of 11
23 March 2014 at 5:26am | IP Logged 
Don't worry, I made that same mistake too.

And still sometimes do, when talking fast (Tja, das ist doch eine komplizierte Sache... oder meine ich, kompliziertere??)
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Gemuse
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4083 days ago

818 posts - 1189 votes 
Speaks: English
Studies: German

 
 Message 5 of 11
19 April 2014 at 6:44pm | IP Logged 
I encountered the phrase
schöneres Wetter
I understand this is comparative+adjective declination leading to schön -> schöner ->
schöneres.

But, we have sentences like
Wofür geben Sie mehr Geld aus?

Why dont we have an adjective declination here for "mehr" (mehres Geld)?

Edited by Gemuse on 19 April 2014 at 6:46pm

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Bao
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
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 Message 6 of 11
19 April 2014 at 8:19pm | IP Logged 
Because of reasons.

It's not a normal adjective, but used for (comparing and) measuring amounts. According to Duden it's called "Indefinitpronomen und unbestimmtes Zahlwort" ... indefinite pronoun and quantifier ...?

But this is one of the words where knowing why it's treated differently doesn't keep you from having to memorize and doing exercises. Of course, when you can identify things like quantifiers in your own language and English and know how they are treated the same or differently from other word classes, then such an explanation might make things a bit easier, because then you can compare the way these words are treated in different languages. But you still have to do the exercises and accept the target language grammar the way it is.
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Gemuse
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4083 days ago

818 posts - 1189 votes 
Speaks: English
Studies: German

 
 Message 7 of 11
19 April 2014 at 9:18pm | IP Logged 
Do besser, and lieber also fall into the same exception class as mehr (no adjective
endings?

But größer, älter, jünger are treated like normal adjectives (eg älteres Buch)?
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Bao
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5
Joined 5767 days ago

2256 posts - 4046 votes 
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin

 
 Message 8 of 11
19 April 2014 at 10:28pm | IP Logged 
Except for lieber, which is an adverb, all those are adjectives. I think. Too lazy to check.


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