Breakdown of Die viele Kunden anlockenden Standbesitzer sind fleißiger als die anderen.
sein
to be
viel
much / a lot
andere
other, different
als
than
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
der Kunde
the customer
fleißig
diligent
der Standbesitzer
the stall owner
anlocken
to attract
Questions & Answers about Die viele Kunden anlockenden Standbesitzer sind fleißiger als die anderen.
Why is viele Kunden sandwiched between Die and anlockenden?
This is the extended participle attribute. In German, you can take a present participle like anlockend (attracting) and put its objects right in front of it. The whole phrase viele Kunden anlockenden acts like one big adjective describing the Standbesitzer. In English, we usually put this information after the noun ("The stall owners attracting many customers..."), but German brackets it all between the article (Die) and the noun.
The verb is anlocken (to attract). How is its present participle formed, and does the separable prefix an- complicate things?
To form a present participle in German, you simply add -d to the infinitive, so anlocken becomes anlockend. The fact that it is a separable verb does not change this rule at all. The prefix remains firmly attached to the front of the infinitive.
Why does the participle have the ending -en in anlockenden?
Because it is placed before the noun to modify Standbesitzer, it behaves exactly like a normal adjective and needs a declension ending. It is in the nominative plural and follows the definite article Die, so it takes the weak adjective ending -en.
Why do we use als instead of wie after fleißiger?
The word fleißiger is a comparative adjective (more hardworking). German always uses als (than) when comparing unequal things with a comparative form. You only use wie (as) when comparing equal things with the base adjective, such as in so fleißig wie (as hardworking as).
Since die anderen means "the others" and stands in for a noun, why isn't anderen capitalized?
Standard German spelling rules treat words like andere (others), viele (many), and wenige (few) as pronouns or adjectives that stay lowercase, even when they stand alone and act like nouns. However, capitalizing it as die Anderen is also officially accepted if you want to emphasize its noun-like role.
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