Grammatica - loco

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oer- oerdom ‘very stupid’, oeroud ‘very old’, oerlelijk ‘very ugly’,
oersaai ‘terribly boring’.
over- has the same force as English ‘over-’ and as in English, it is
not stressed, e.g. overrijp ‘overripe’, overgevoelig ‘oversensitive’,
overgaar ‘over-cooked’.
poep- (= shit) vulgar, but more so is stront-, e.g. poepduur ‘very
expensive’, poepdeftig ‘very posh’; stronteigenwijs ‘as
stubborn as a mule’.
reuze- still productive, e.g. reuze populair ‘very popular’, reuze
vervelend ‘very annoying’. Reuze is usually not written as one
word with the adjective it qualifies but reuzeleuk ‘really nice’
is a notable exception.
stapel- only used in combination with words for ‘mad’, e.g.
stapelgek, stapelidioot ‘stark staring mad’.
super- superfijn ‘very fine’, superknap ‘very clever’, superveilig ‘very
safe’.
ultra- usually with loanwords, e.g. ultraradicaal, ultraconservatief.
The intensifiers given above are particularly common and are to a degree
still productive. In addition to them are others, many of them nouns,
which occur in only one compound adjective. Sometimes these can be
translated almost literally, e.g. ijskoud ‘ice-cold’, spotgoedkoop ‘dirt-cheap’,
but very often in English they are rendered by an ‘as . . . as . . .’ phrase,
e.g. stokdoof ‘as deaf as a post’. Beware when confronted with an English
‘as . . . as . . .’ expression which you want to translate because more often
than not it will be a compound adjective in Dutch, but zo . . . als expressions
do exist too, e.g. zo mager als een lat ‘as thin as a rake’, zo blind als een
mol ‘as blind as a bat’, zo trots als een pauw ‘as proud as a peacock’.
The following list of compound adjectives is by no means complete.
apetrots as proud as a peacock
broodnuchter as sober as a judge
drijf-, klets-, zeiknat soaking wet, wet through
glashelder as clear as a bell
gloedheet red hot, as hot as Hades
gloednieuw brand new
haarfijn as fine as a hair
Formation of
adjectives
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