Adjective from Adjective or Verb

There are many ways to form an adjective. The article below will introduce some common ways of forming adjectives from adjectives and from verbs.

1. Adjektive aus Adjektiven

- By adding prefixes (Präfix) before an adjective, we can create new adjectives with different meanings:

• Tiền tố in-: diskret → indiskret

• Tiền tố des-: interessiert → desinteressiert

• Tiền tố un-: höflich → unhöflich

• Tiền tố ir-: rational → irrational

→ The prefixes in-, des-, un-, ir- are used to form adjectives with opposite meanings.

• Tiền tố anti-: alkoholisch → antialkoholisch

• Tiền tố kontra-: produktiv → kontraproduktiv

• Tiền tố miss-: verständlich → missverständlich

• Tiền tố il-: legal → illegal

• Tiền tố non-: verbal → nonverbal

• Tiền tố de-: aktiviert → deaktiviert

- In addition, adjectives can also be formed by combining:

• Adjektiv + Adjektiv: hellblau, dunkelblau, bitterkalt

• Verb + Adjektiv: wissbegierig

• Nomen + Adjektiv: leistungsfähig

2. Adjektive aus Verben

- A verb can become an adjective when a suffix (Suffix) is added to the verb stem:

• Suffix -bar: machen → machbar. Most adjectives formed with the suffix -bar typically describe the ability to do something, for example essbar means "able to be eaten."

• Suffix -sam: sparen → sparsam

• Suffix -abel: spenden → spendabel

• Suffix -lich: bedrohen → bedrohlich

• Suffix -los: schlafen → schlaflos. This suffix conveys the meaning that something is absent (etwas nicht da ist, ohne etwas), for example arbeitslos means "without a job."- Additionally, the participle forms/participle inflections of verbs can also be used as an adjective:

• Partizip I als Adjektiv: fragen → fragend

• Partizip II als Adjektiv: gefährden → gefährdet