Word
Eine Zigarette ist nicht gesund.
Meaning
A cigarette is not healthy.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Eine Zigarette ist nicht gesund.
sein
to be
nicht
not
gesund
healthy
die Zigarette
the cigarette
Questions & Answers about Eine Zigarette ist nicht gesund.
This sentence is very simple. How would I change it to use our current lesson's grammar, like 'A cigarette is too unhealthy to smoke'?
You would use the zu + adjective + um ... zu + infinitive structure. It would become: Eine Zigarette ist zu ungesund, um sie zu rauchen. Notice that we added sie (it). Unlike English, German requires an object pronoun in the second half here because the cigarette isn't doing the smoking; it is the thing being smoked.
Could I just say Eine Zigarette ist ungesund instead of nicht gesund?
Yes, absolutely! ungesund means unhealthy, while nicht gesund means not healthy. They mean basically the same thing, but ungesund is often preferred when you want to be direct about something being actively bad for you.
Why does nicht come right before gesund here?
When nicht negates a specific adjective rather than the whole sentence's action, it sits directly in front of that adjective. It works exactly like the English phrase not healthy.