Breakdown of Dieser Mythos ist überhaupt nicht wissenschaftlich.
sein
to be
dieser
this / that (fem.: diese, neut.: dieses)
überhaupt nicht
not at all (emphatic)
der Mythos
the myth
wissenschaftlich
scientific
Questions & Answers about Dieser Mythos ist überhaupt nicht wissenschaftlich.
How does überhaupt nicht change the tone of this sentence compared to just using nicht?
It strongly amplifies the negation. While nicht wissenschaftlich simply means "not scientific," adding überhaupt turns it into "not at all scientific" or "absolutely not scientific." It emphasizes that the myth has absolutely zero scientific basis.
Could I use gar nicht instead of überhaupt nicht here?
Yes, Dieser Mythos ist gar nicht wissenschaftlich means the exact same thing. Both phrases are used to mean "not at all." Überhaupt nicht can sometimes feel slightly more emphatic or formal in spoken German, but they are fully interchangeable in this context.
Why does überhaupt nicht come right before the adjective wissenschaftlich?
In German, when you negate a specific adjective rather than the entire sentence, the negation block (including any amplifiers like überhaupt) comes immediately before the word it negates. Here, it is specifically negating the adjective wissenschaftlich.
Why is the word for "this" Dieser instead of Dieses?
Because der Mythos (the myth) is a masculine noun. It is a loanword from Greek, and many Greek words ending in -os keep their original masculine gender in German. Since it is the subject of the sentence, it takes the masculine nominative ending -er.
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