Breakdown of Die Rakete fliegt am schnellsten.
schnell
fast, quickly
fliegen
to fly
am
the most (superlative marker)
die Rakete
the rocket
Questions & Answers about Die Rakete fliegt am schnellsten.
Why does the sentence use am instead of a word for "the" like das?
When a superlative describes how an action is done, like how the rocket flies here, you must use the special am ...-sten structure. You only use der, die, or das when the superlative is directly in front of a noun, like in the phrase die schnellste Rakete (the fastest rocket).
How do you build schnellsten from the base word schnell?
You take the base word schnell (fast), add -st to make it superlative (fastest), and then add -en because it is part of the am phrase. So, schnell + st + en gives you schnellsten.
Some adjectives get an umlaut in this form. Why doesn't schnellsten?
Short adjectives often get an umlaut in the superlative if their main vowel is a, o, or u (for example, alt becomes am ältesten). The word schnell has an e, and the letter e never takes an umlaut in German.
Is there a rule to help remember that it is die Rakete?
Yes! As a helpful rule of thumb, the vast majority of German nouns that end in the letter -e are feminine and therefore use die.
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