My wife is learning German, and she asked me if she could say "ein super Restaurant". It certainly sounded like something I might hear from a native speaker, and a Google search confirmed that it is common enough. But how can it be grammatical? If "super" is an adjective, then surely it should be "ein superes Restaurant"? I know that foreign adjectives that end in a vowel (e.g. "lila") are not declined like native adjectives, but I thought that if they end in a consonant then they are declined ("ein cooles Restaurant"). Am I wrong about this? Or is "super" a special case?
1
stefo
Super seems to be a special case, but don't ask me why...
It doesn't behave like other adjectives, not only in that it doesn't seem to agree with the nouns it describes, but also in that it doesn't have comparative and superlative form, unlike cool: cool, cooler, das coolste Restaurant - not something I would usual write, but quite acceptable in spoken German. But never super, superer, das superste.
If I find the time, I'll try to find out more about it, but but the moment all I can tell you is that your wife would be quite right to say "ein super Restaurant".
2
tonieja
I don't speak German. But, I keep hearing super, pronounced 'zoopah', all the time from Germans.
And it doesn't look like the usage of the word is subject to any linguistic rules of German grammar. It's just like implanted word in one form, 'super'.
7
orangutan
No, sorry, I don't read. Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof.
Oh, you meant when the sound of a foregin adjective words ends with a vowel,not the word itself. Right....
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