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I came across the following sentence the other day, and my wife who is a native German speaker from Austria insists it is correct. But by the rules I have been taught it is wrong. Can someone explain why wie should be used here instead of als?
Seine Hose ist nicht so bunt wie die Jacke.
The rules I am going by are: wie when comparing things that are the same, and als when different. So my interpretation is that the two items are different in that one is not as colourful as the other.
Seine Hose ist nicht so bunt wie die Jacke. (no comparative)
Seine Hose ist weniger bunt als die Jacke. (comparative)
Seine Hose ist weniger bunt wie die Jacke. (comparative, dialect)
Seine Hose ist weniger bunt als wie die Jacke. (comparative, dialect)
The difference is whether you use a comparative or not. Non-comparatives require wie. For comparatives, als is Standard German but dialect may also allow wie and even als wie.
Weniger ... [als] wie is just plain wrong. Never use it in educated circles, and never in writing.
Aug 21, 2017 at 13:36
So (adjective wie) is an equivalence. E.g. "So bunt wie."
For the comparative, you would normally use Adjective -er als. E.g. bunter als.
But here, you are establishing a comparative using a negative equivalence. That is, "Nicht so bunt wie."
In this example, you keep the 'equivalence" form (in its negative version) to make your comparison. That's why you use "wie" and not "als."
Rule of thumb:
as/like = wie
than = als
The rule is correct, your interpretation of it is wrong.
You can maybe think of it as setting up the comparing phrase first into a complete sentence and then adding nicht for the negation. Or you might say that the nicht simply has to be ignored when determining whether things are the same or not.
Therefore, since it would be:
Seine Hose ist so bunt wie die Jacke.
It must also be:
Seine Hose ist nicht so bunt wie die Jacke.
Only the addition of the negation adverb has changed in the sentences.
Well, I can't speak to the German rules directly, but I can say that the sentences directly correlate to what they are in English.
His pants are not so colorful like the jacket. (The jacket is colorful, but the pants are not so. Implied comparison, I guess, but not really. Simply stating the colorfulness of each item.) His pants are less colorful than the jacket. (Regardless of the actual state of color of either item, the pants are less than that of the jacket. Direct comparison.) His pants are less colorful like the jacket. (No direct comparison between the subjects, but both items are less colorful than some unmentioned item.)
Just my zwei Cent.
I agree with Janka, obviously.
