What is the difference between größte and am größten
I am doing self study, so my question may be some naive. I see this
groß -> großen-> am großten
but what is großte (and in another example älteste) It would be great if some one examplify these.
Thanks in Advance
16 Comments
first of all. the difference between o and ö is important.
groß - größer - am größten
großen has a different meaning (as scheppel said).
I will use InuzukaShinos example (thanks^^)
A.
EN: This is the biggest tower (in town / in the word / I have ever seen).
DE: Das ist der größte Turm (in der Stadt / auf der Welt / den ich je gesehen habe)
B.
EN: This tower is the biggest one (of all).
DE: Dieser Turm ist am größten (implicit: von allen).
You cant that easily add a constraint like "I have ever seen" to this sentence (B). It gets a bit circuitous if you try. "Dieser Turm ist am größten in der Stadt" does work, but sounds quite unusual. Sentenses with "ist am größten/am schnellsten, etc" are best used solitary. The compared 'all' are implicitly given by the context.
It gets interesting if you compare this two sentences:
C. Das ist der größte blaue Turm.
D. Dieser blaue Turm ist am größten.
Meaning:
C. Of all blue towers this is the biggest one, but there might be a red tower, which is bigger.
D. This is the biggest tower, it's blue.
groß - größer - am größten /
Das Auto ist groß - dein Auto ist größer - mein Auto ist am größten.
Aber: Meine Auto ist das größte.
I think the real problem is, that there is no difference in English, isn't it?
:-)
No, but I believe, most uf us here are not native English speakers, so the chance was high to be correct ;-)
"größer" is the "Komparativ" of groß - "bigger".
"großen" is the "Genitiv" of "groß"
"Das Dach des großen Hauses" - "The roof of the big house"
In English, 'größte' would be i. e. biggest, 'älteste' would be oldest:
- EN: This is the biggest tower in Town.
- DE: Das ist der größte Turm in der Stadt.
- EN: This is the oldest monument of this culture.
- DE: Das ist das älteste Monument dieser Kultur.
I can´t explain exactly, when to use the one or the other, but in the following examples, you see a difference in the sentence structure:
- Dieser Turm ist am größten.
- Dieses Monument ist am ältesten.
I suppose and from my feelings, it belongs to a slight change of meaning. The first structure is a definitive statement, the second construction is a comparison, perhaps like:
- This man is the biggest among others.
But I don´t use this last construction that much, it sounds old school, weird and not good for me, I don´t like it.
Keine Ursache! / Da nich´für! / Gern geschehen! / You are welcome! / Nie ma za co! / どういたしまして！ :-)
:-) I love different scripts! I want to learn somedays Far and Arb too :-) very beautiful!
