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younger vs youngest

Moderators: Stasia, xillegas

ElmerRamone
United States of America

younger vs youngest

Post by ElmerRamone »

How do you differentiate between 'youngest' and 'younger'? It seems like 'menor' is used for both. Ex. 'mi hermano menor' means both 'my younger brother' and 'my youngest brother'. I'm confused.

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gscottoliver
United States of America

Re: younger vs youngest

Post by gscottoliver »

You could always specify el/la más joven.

This made me wonder what I might say, when I have three sisters who are all older than I am. I don’t think menor would be used if I wanted to talk about the youngest of the three.

ScottO
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Cifi

Re: younger vs youngest

Post by Cifi »

Welcome over here! It's nice to see more and more names I remember from the Duolingo forum popping up here.

In my understanding, it can be both.

Comparing scenarios in English:

You have one younger brother:

I think you would refer to him as "your younger brother", right? (In theory he also is your youngest brother because there is no other one who is younger, but you probably wouldn't ever use the superlative because it doesn't make sense with only one person.)

You have two younger brothers:

You can explicitly refer to the youngest one as "my youngest brother", but "my younger brother" could mean either him or the one that is aged between you and the youngest (I'm unable to phrase it more concise right now, sorry).

It just doesn't provide any more information than "you are older than him", thus not allowing a clear distinction between your two brothers.

If you want to explicitly state that he is the youngest in Spanish, you'd probably have to put it like "el menor de mis hermanos". If you don't, it's as unspecific as "my younger brother" in English.

Native: :de: Intermediate: :uk: Lower intermediate: :es: Beginner: :fr: Absolute beginner: 🇬🇷
(If there are errors in what I'm writing in either language, please do correct me - I'll never take it as offense or something like that.)

Cifi

Re: younger vs youngest

Post by Cifi »

gscottoliver wrote: Thu Apr 07, 2022 10:43 pm

You could always specify el/la más joven.

This made me wonder what I might say, when I have three sisters who are all older than I am. I don’t think menor would be used if I wanted to talk about the youngest of the three.

Curious: what would you say in English in this situation? My guess would be "the youngest of my sisters", but I'm not sure if this would still trigger the association that she's younger than you.

Native: :de: Intermediate: :uk: Lower intermediate: :es: Beginner: :fr: Absolute beginner: 🇬🇷
(If there are errors in what I'm writing in either language, please do correct me - I'll never take it as offense or something like that.)

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luo-ning

Re: younger vs youngest

Post by luo-ning »

gscottoliver wrote: Thu Apr 07, 2022 10:43 pm

el/la más joven.

How does that work with "mi", though? "El más joven de mis hermanos"?

Edit: also, if my sister is the youngest of my siblings, would it be "ella es la más joven de mis hermanos" (agreeing with "ella") or "ella es el más joven de mis hermanos" (agreeing with "hermano(s)")?

Last edited by luo-ning on Thu Apr 07, 2022 11:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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gscottoliver
United States of America

Re: younger vs youngest

Post by gscottoliver »

I would just say “my youngest sister”, because she is, even though I’m the baby of the family.

So I guess my suggestion of la más joven would work just as well. And yes, [mention]luo-ning[/mention], what you have written is what I suggest.

ScottO
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Stasia
Poland

Re: younger vs youngest

Post by Stasia »

gscottoliver wrote: Thu Apr 07, 2022 11:09 pm

So I guess my suggestion of la más joven would work just as well. And yes, @luo-ning, what you have written is what I suggest.

You can also say "la más menor," for example: "Tengo tres hermanas menores. Juanita es la más menor de todas."

Native: :poland:; Fluent: :es:, :us:; Getting there: Image; Intermediate: :fr:; Beginner: :ukraine:

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Julian_L.
Argentina

Re: younger vs youngest

Post by Julian_L. »

At least in my case, when I talk about my sisters (who are older than me) without telling their names, I say «mi hermana más mayor» for the eldest one, while I simply say «mi hermana» for the other one. Clarifying she is my «hermana del medio» would be odd, because the only one that's younger than her is me.

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Cifi

Re: younger vs youngest

Post by Cifi »

[mention]Stasia[/mention] and [mention]Julian_L.[/mention]: "más mayor/menor" still feels kind of weird for me, like "most oldest/youngest".

Just to make sure: does this exclusively work with mayor/menor? Or would it be possible with mejor/peor (the only other irregular comparatives I'm aware of), too?

Native: :de: Intermediate: :uk: Lower intermediate: :es: Beginner: :fr: Absolute beginner: 🇬🇷
(If there are errors in what I'm writing in either language, please do correct me - I'll never take it as offense or something like that.)

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Stasia
Poland

Re: younger vs youngest

Post by Stasia »

Cifi wrote: Sat Apr 09, 2022 10:12 pm

@Stasia and @Julian_L.: "más mayor/menor" still feels kind of weird for me, like "most oldest/youngest".

Just to make sure: does this exclusively work with mayor/menor? Or would it be possible with mejor/peor (the only other irregular comparatives I'm aware of), too?


Bueno, mejor, el mejor
(good, better, the best)
Malo, peor, el peor (bad, worse, the worst)

You will hear el más mejor/el más peor from native speakers, but it's not considered a proper way to say it. It's usually used for added emphasis.

Viejo, mayor, el mayor
(or el más mayor for added emphasis, but it's colloquial, so bear in mind that in Spanish classes it will get marked as incorrect)

Joven, menor, el menor (or el más menor for added emphasis, again colloquial)

It makes sense when you compare with regular:

Bonito, más bonito, el más bonito (pretty, prettier, the prettiest).

The real difference is in the comparative form, and the superlative always is el/la + comparative.

Native: :poland:; Fluent: :es:, :us:; Getting there: Image; Intermediate: :fr:; Beginner: :ukraine:

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luo-ning

Re: younger vs youngest

Post by luo-ning »

Ehh, I don't get how something can not be a "proper" usage when it's both widely used and serves a useful disambiguating function. Kinda like when people claim that "y'all" isn't proper despite being the most widely used second-person plural pronoun in modern English.

Even if the RAE proscribes something, they're just some crusty old curmudgeons in an ivory tower, they have no influence over how people on the street actually use the language.

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Cifi

Re: younger vs youngest

Post by Cifi »

Stasia wrote: Sun Apr 10, 2022 3:40 am

It makes sense when you compare with regular:

Bonito, más bonito, el más bonito (pretty, prettier, the prettiest).

Here's some more on comparative vs superlative with regular adjectives:

https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/4581 ... d=52505233

Native: :de: Intermediate: :uk: Lower intermediate: :es: Beginner: :fr: Absolute beginner: 🇬🇷
(If there are errors in what I'm writing in either language, please do correct me - I'll never take it as offense or something like that.)

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Stasia
Poland

Re: younger vs youngest

Post by Stasia »

luo-ning wrote: Sun Apr 10, 2022 8:43 am

Ehh, I don't get how something can not be a "proper" usage when it's both widely used and serves a useful disambiguating function. Kinda like when people claim that "y'all" isn't proper despite being the most widely used second-person plural pronoun in modern English.

Even if the RAE proscribes something, they're just some crusty old curmudgeons in an ivory tower, they have no influence over how people on the street actually use the language.

This is a great point. Each language has many varieties (dialects, if you will), which continue to change over time. No language is static, and no language has a single "proper" way to express things. There are regional as well as social distinctions (e.g. social class-based). However, people tend to judge different linguistic varieties - often, the ones considered to be "proper" are associated with the elites and the ones considered to be "not proper" are spoken by people of lower socioeconomic status. The extreme example of placing different values at different ways of speaking is British Received Pronunciation - nobody grows up speaking like that, but it's taught in good (read: expensive) schools as the most proper way of speaking.

Hence, the descriptive way of looking at language is just describing how native speakers say things, without judging them, while the prescriptive way of looking at language is choosing one "grammatically proper" way and disregarding the others as "not proper."

While learning a second/third/fourth/etc language, I'd say it's OK to start with the prescriptive way - simply because it would be too complicated to learn all different ways at once! Then, as you interact with native speakers of a given variety of the language you are learning, you will be exposed to their ways of speaking and learn the real language through immersion.

More on descriptive vs. prescriptive grammar:
https://amyrey.web.unc.edu/classes/ling ... e-grammar/

Native: :poland:; Fluent: :es:, :us:; Getting there: Image; Intermediate: :fr:; Beginner: :ukraine:

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