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- "Η δυσκολότερη δουλειά."
16 Comments
Yes I would have thought that " η δυσκολότερη δουλειά" would translate as " The more difficult job" and "η πιο δυσκολότερη δουλειά" as " The most difficult job"?
The presence of the article (η) in front of δυσκολότερη makes this "the most difficult".
Your second example, "η πιο δυσκολότερη δουλειά," is incorrect gramatically. It would be translated as "the most difficultest work."
Shouldn't the inherent ambiguity of this sentence also include "the more difficult/harder work"?
If "more difficult" is a hint , than "harder" should also be accepted, no?
why then μεγαλητερο σπιτι is the bigger house, not biggest? in of these questions is a mistake i suppose
No, both are correct.
The former is "bigger house" because there is no article (in that case το) infront of μεγαλήτερο.
In this case the δυσκολότερη is preceded by the article (η) which make it (most difficult).
I would think that the article in this case is just that, so it should be comparactive. If it were το δουλειά είνα η δυσκολότερη, then η would indicate superlative. But i'm still learning. I still don't kniw how to say "the more difficult job" if what you say is right.
Since the proper superlative forms are not used as such in Modern Greek, the phrase containing the article and the superlative form could be just that, i.e. the comparative, but only depending on specific context. Therefore, as troll1995 writes above, without any context (as in the example):
Definite article+comparative=superlative. ;)
And another note:
δουλειά (η - fem.) = work, job (pay attention to the article)
δουλεία (η - fem.) = slavery
Another good example why accents matter. ;)
I think that with no context either should be acceptable. To force the superlative, you need context.
What you're saying is understandable, but, as D_.. has mentioned, the usage is a bit different in Greek. It's true that there is no context, but, even if someone had added a verb, for example "Είναι η δυσκολότερη δουλειά", the Greek speaker would still mean "The most difficult job" and the Greek interlocutor wouldn't be expected to infer anything else from that other than the superlative.
