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- "Er ist weiterhin der beste."
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does 'weiterhin' really mean 'still'? which is the difference with 'noch' then? The Collins dictionary translation is puzzling as well :/
http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/german-english/weiterhin?showCookiePolicy=true
Yes, "weiterhin" means "still" when it is used as an adverb like in this case. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/weiterhin
Unfortunately I am not sure what is the exact difference between "noch" and "weiterhin". I only found that synonym of "weiterhin" is "immer noch" = "still" which is, if I'm not mistaken, just a more expressive way of saying "noch".
I searched on a german-italian dictionary both weiterhin and noch. This is what I found (please take it cum grano salis, the dictionary is a bit old): Weiterhin: in the future, later on Noch: more general 'still'. It can be 'still' (es ist noch warm), 'to now' (das ist noch nie vorgekommen), 'more' (wollen Sie noch Zucker), 'other' (noch zwei Bier).
I wonder if there is a way to involve any german-speaker in Duolingo in this discussion.
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I have read in another topic that both "weiterhin" and "immer noch" can mean "still", but while "immer noch" would suggest that the situation may change soon, "weiterhin" would not .
Wow, this is hard. German native speaker here. All are very similar and can be used in this sentence. As I don't dare to dismantle all the small nuances of these words, I will just translate what they imply in this sentence.
"Er ist weiterhin der Beste." -> He is still the best, he has been the best and he probably will continue to be the best. Actually, I translated this with "He continues to be the best." It was accepted. Actually actually, why is "der beste" written in minuscules? It's a nominalisation, it should be capitalized.
"Er ist noch der Beste." -> He is still the best but who knows what the future might bring.
"Er ist immer noch der Beste." -> Against all odds, he is still the best.
thanks, I think I'll stick to this explanation. It's probably off topic, but I also found the difference between immer noch and noch immer. I leave the link here, for those who may find it interesting: http://german.stackexchange.com/questions/3347/noch-immer-vs-immer-noch
According to google translate it is the preferred translation: https://translate.google.nl/#de/en/weiterhin
Actually, this is a nominalisation. So it should be capitalized, see Duden: https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/beste_Adjektiv
It doesn't have to be a nominalisation. E.g.
"Von allen Schwimmern hier ist er immer noch der beste." -> der beste Schwimmer
But as the context is missing, we can't know that it is not a nominalisation, sorry. Capitalisation is the correct way to go. Duolingo is wrong.
Sorry but German doesn't work like that. It's a little more complex. You can nominalize an adjective and make it into something that has the attributes of the adjective.
"Die Schöne und das Biest" -> die schöne Frau
"Wer ist der Klassenbeste?" -> der beste Junge in der Klasse
"Kümmert euch um die Alten und Schwachen!" -> die alten und schwachen Leute
"Das kleine Schwarze steht dir gut." -> kleines, schwarzes Kleid
"Noch ein Schwarzes, bitte!" -> ein Schwarzbier
etc.
Lived in Germany for over 3 years, was a German major, and can say I have only used weiterhin as still when referring to an action that is still occurring (not referring to a state of being like this is). This sentence just sounds odd and if I heard it in just about any context I would think someone is saying something like "furthermore, he is the best".
Native German speakers, academicians, grammarians: should not "der beste" be "der Beste"? When the noun is omitted or understood and the adjective takes its place, I believe the adjective should be capitalized. Think of die Alten (die alten Leute), der Alte (der alte Mann), der Junge (der junge Mann), die Neuen (die neuen Dinge). Your opinions?
Nuance, I think: to me, "so far" smells more like noch as in "up to now", while weiterhin smells more like "from now forward." (As an aside, still appears to be much more likely to be translated as "noch" than it is "weiterhin", if dict.cc can be believed. Context, I guess.)