Breakdown of Dat vlees is magerder, maar dit vlees is veel lekkerder.
zijn
to be
maar
but
veel
much / many / a lot of
lekker
tasty / nicely / pleasantly
het vlees
the meat
dit
this (neuter)
dat
that (het-words)
mager
lean
Questions & Answers about Dat vlees is magerder, maar dit vlees is veel lekkerder.
Why is it magerder and lekkerder instead of just adding -er?
Usually, you just add -er to an adjective to make a comparative (like 'leaner' or 'tastier'). But if the base adjective already ends in -r, like mager (lean) or lekker (tasty), adding just -er is hard to say. To make it easier to pronounce, Dutch adds -der instead. That gives us magerder and lekkerder.
Why do we use dat and dit for 'that' and 'this', instead of die and deze?
The word for meat is a 'het' word (het vlees). When you point to a singular 'het' word, 'this' is dit and 'that' is dat. If it were a 'de' word, you would use deze and die instead.
How does veel work before lekkerder?
Just like in English where we say 'much tastier', Dutch uses veel (much or a lot) before a comparative adjective to intensify it. Veel lekkerder simply means 'much tastier'.
Does the 'a' in magerder keep its long sound?
Yes! In mager, the 'a' is a long vowel because it sits in an open syllable (ma-ger). When you add -der to make magerder, the syllables become ma-ger-der, so the 'a' stays at the end of the first syllable and keeps its long, open sound.
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