Breakdown of Als Züchter braucht man oft die allergrößte Geduld.
groß
big / tall
oft
often
brauchen
to need
man
one / you (impersonal)
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
die Geduld
the patience
als
as (in the role of)
der Züchter
the breeder
Questions & Answers about Als Züchter braucht man oft die allergrößte Geduld.
How does the prefix aller- change the meaning of größte in this sentence?
The prefix aller- is used to intensify a superlative adjective. While die größte Geduld simply means "the greatest patience," adding aller- turns it into "the absolute greatest" or "the very greatest" patience possible. It originally comes from the genitive plural of all, literally meaning "the greatest of all."
Why does allergrößte end in -e here?
Even with the aller- prefix attached, it still acts as a normal adjective and must follow standard adjective declension rules. Here, it modifies the feminine noun Geduld in the accusative case (since patience is the direct object being "needed"). Because it follows the definite article die, it takes the weak adjective ending -e.
Why is there no article before Züchter? In English we say "As a breeder".
In German, when you state someone's profession, role, or nationality using als (meaning "as"), you drop the indefinite article (ein or eine).
Why does the verb braucht come before the subject man?
This is a great example of the V2 (verb-second) rule. The phrase Als Züchter occupies the first position in the sentence. Because the conjugated verb braucht must always take the second position in a main clause, the subject man gets pushed to the third position.
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