Questions & Answers about Hans frygt for fremtiden er for stor.
English uses "of" in "fear of the future". Why does Danish use for instead of af?
When expressing abstract concepts involving feelings or attitudes directed toward something, Danish frequently uses for. While af often translates to "of", it is mostly used for physical origin, composition, or possession. For emotions, you should memorize collocations like frygt for (fear of), respekt for (respect for), and forståelse for (understanding of).
The word for appears twice here. Are they serving the same grammatical function?
No, they do completely different jobs. The first for is a preposition connecting the noun frygt to fremtiden (fear of the future). The second for is an adverb meaning "too," which modifies the adjective stor to mean "too great".
Why does the sentence use stor (big) to mean "great"? Wouldn't meget (much) work better for fear?
In Danish, abstract emotions and sensations like frygt (fear), smerte (pain), or glæde (joy) are often described in terms of size rather than quantity. Therefore, you say the fear is stor (big) rather than using a quantity word like meget (much).
What determines the ending of the adjective stor in this sentence?