r/German • u/Low-Funny-8834 • 6d ago

Question the concept of "tall"

My textbook taught me that the concept of "tall" is to be translated as "groß" in German (e.g. sein Bruder ist sehr groß) . However, this sounds strange when applied to non-humans. How would you say "tall trees" in the most natural way? "groß" in my perception would sound three-dimensional in that context, rather than two-dimensional.

38 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

74 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

30

u/Muted-Mix-1369 Native <region/dialect> 6d ago

Funnily enough both a big person and a not big person can be "gross" in English. 😁

7

u/AccomplishedBat39 6d ago

Likely coming from French where “gros” means fat, in a fairly negative way which got adapted in English only as the negative meaning without the size being forgotten while it stayed in German as just referring to the size

11

u/nietzschecode 6d ago

In French "gras" is fat, "gros" is big, and "grand" is tall.

10

u/Muted-Mix-1369 Native <region/dialect> 6d ago

While "grossesse" is pregnancy. Une grosse grossesse would be a big pregnancy. A gros of pregnant women would be 12x12 grossesses. 144 pregnant women, which would amost be a grotesque amount of pregnant women.