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The pull down translations for schöner said nice, beautiful, pretty instead of nicer or more beautiful. I think that should be changed...
"Schöner" doesn't have to be comparative. It can mean simply "beautiful" as well, as in: "Ein schöner Apfel ist auf dem Tisch." → "A beautiful apple is on the table." When there's no preceding definite article, adjectives that modify masculine singular nouns in the nominative (subject) case get that -er added. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_declension#Attributive_adjectives The comparative is probably more common, but this can happen too, and Duolingo's drop-down translations seem to ignore context, which would be the only way to choose between "beautiful" and "more beautiful" (probably, they use "beautiful" as the default because they introduce adjective declension before comparatives).
So how would you say "Nothing is beautiful"? And how can we distinguish between comparative and nominative?
That would be "Nichts ist schön."
You can tell what's what from context, because the "schöner" that is comparative is an uninflected form, either because it's an adverb or because a linking verb connects them. "Ein Sonnenuntergang ist viel schöner, wenn man traurig ist." (A sunset is much more beautiful when you are sad.)
The "schöner" that is not comparative is an inflected form; it usually comes directly before nouns (for exactly when, see the tables I linked to before). "Es war ein sehr schöner Abend." (It was a beautiful evening.)
You can also have both at the same time: an inflected comparative. "Die schönen Äpfel liegen auf dem Tisch, und ein schönerer Apfel hab ich in der Hand."
It gets better if your adjective ends in -er to begin with. "Ein sichererer Computer hätte ein verschlüsseltes Dateisystem." (A more secure computer would have an encrypted filesystem.)
I love that German basically uses "beautiful-er" in this sentence, and none of that silly "more (x)" that English does. So easy to remember!
In English, some words have comparative forms:
Pretty, prettier, prettiest Quick, quicker, quickest Fast, faster, fastest
Because these words have comparative forms, most native speakers will use the comparative forms instead of "more" or "most."
Examples:
She is prettier than her sister. (Instead of "more pretty.")
I think that doll is the prettiest. (Instead of the "most pretty.")
She won the race because she was the quickest. (Instead of the "most quick.")
I wish I had a faster computer. (Instead of "more fast.")
So, would this sentence "Nichts ist mehr schön" be translated as "Nothing is beautiful anymore"?
Can anyone please post the concept of nicht/kein... May be some link or some other discussion thread? I'm really confused about the position of the nicht in sentences.. Humble request!
Emotionally overloaded emo anime kid: "No I don't want to fill his absence with a new dog. You don't understand it do you? You can't force yourself to love the new replicas of the lost ones. Even trying it would hurt you. Having a void is better than fooling yourself with phony love."
Evil DarkLord trying to recruit a young confused child to his Void army: "Do you think fighting for the light will bring you happiness? There is only darkness in the end child. Light is nothing but a consumption in a bright cloak. Any light ever is doomed to burn out. Nothingness will last forever... Light is strong child; but void is better, void is beyond strength. Void is the End. And it will come for the Light too."
I was asking if the grammar is okay =D Making a sense is the easy part.
"Void is better" still would not make any sense unless you're using "Void" as a proper noun. So no, not really.
I didn't use it as a proper noun in the first example I believe? Even If I did, why can't I use it as a proper noun? Please enlighten me if there is a German grammar rule for proper nouns that makes it so proper nouns can't be used like that, I would really appreciate it =D
Your first example also isn't the sentence "Void is better", so it's not really relevant.
It's English that the translation doesn't work in (not German).
That would be "Die Leere ist besser." "The void is better." http://dictionnaire.reverso.net/allemand-anglais/die%20Leere Notice you talk about Nothingness rather than nothing.
Not the same as "Nothing is nicer." or "Nothing is more beautiful."
I don't need to be precise to the words. "Nothing is beautiful" should work.
That would be "Nichts ist schön." After the the verb to be the adjective is in its uninflected form, so we know that "schöner" in this sentence is the comparative "nicer" or "more beautiful" or "prettier", but if you had "Ein schöner Mann ist hier." it would be "a beautiful man" or "a handsome man" or "a nice man". In that case it would be inflected to match "der Mann" or in other words the '-er' ending was added to the adjective "schön" for masculine singular noun in Nominative case with mixed inflection because it comes after "ein" article. http://www.canoo.net/services/Controller?input=sch%F6n=(Cat+A)=inflection=en
