Word
De soldaat bereikte de allerhoogste berg met veruit de allerzwaarste rugzak.
Meaning
The soldier reached the very highest mountain with by far the very heaviest backpack.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of De soldaat bereikte de allerhoogste berg met veruit de allerzwaarste rugzak.
met
with
de berg
the mountain
de soldaat
the soldier
bereiken
to achieve / to reach (a goal)
Questions & Answers about De soldaat bereikte de allerhoogste berg met veruit de allerzwaarste rugzak.
How does the prefix aller- change the meaning of the superlatives hoogste and zwaarste?
It acts as a strong intensifier, translating roughly to "the very" or "the absolute". While de hoogste is just "the highest", de allerhoogste stresses that it is "the very highest". You can attach aller- to almost any superlative adjective in Dutch.
Can we combine veruit and an aller- superlative, like in veruit de allerzwaarste? Isn't that redundant?
You can absolutely combine them for maximum emphasis! Veruit means "by far", and aller- adds "the very". Together, veruit de allerzwaarste rugzak means "by far the very heaviest backpack". While it is highly emphatic, it is perfectly correct and very common in Dutch when a speaker wants to make a strong point.
Why is veruit placed before the article de rather than right before the adjective?
In Dutch, veruit usually precedes the entire superlative noun phrase, including the definite article. So you have to say veruit de allerzwaarste. Placing it after the article, like de veruit allerzwaarste, sounds unnatural to native speakers.
Why do allerhoogste and allerzwaarste both end in an -e?