Word
Het was een gigantisch duur project dat onverklaarbaar mislukte.
Meaning
It was a gigantically expensive project that failed inexplicably.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Het was een gigantisch duur project dat onverklaarbaar mislukte.
zijn
to be
een
a/an
duur
expensive
het project
the project
Questions & Answers about Het was een gigantisch duur project dat onverklaarbaar mislukte.
Why is it gigantisch duur and not gigantische duur?
In this sentence, gigantisch acts as an adverb of degree modifying the adjective duur—it means the project was gigantically expensive, not that it was both gigantic and expensive. Adverbs of degree never get an -e ending.
Why doesn't the adjective duur get an -e ending here?
Because project is a neuter noun (a het-word). When a het-word is preceded by the indefinite article een, the adjective in front of it loses its -e ending. If you used the definite article, it would become het gigantisch dure project.
Both gigantisch and onverklaarbaar lack an -e ending. Is it for the exact same reason?
They are both adverbs, which makes them invariant (no -e ending), but they do slightly different jobs in the sentence. Gigantisch is an adverb of degree modifying an adjective (duur). Onverklaarbaar is a standard adverb modifying a verb—it describes how the project failed (mislukte).
Why do we use dat to say "that failed" instead of die?