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I think "wichtiger" is the comparative form, so why do we use it here, even though we're not making a comparison? Is it because there's some implicit comparison here in German ("today is a more important day than other days")?

Edit: just found out "today is a more important day than other days" actually uses wichtigerer, so I'm even more confused.

Edit 2: discovered the same applies to schöner and guter, and probably more, so there's something here I'm not aware of.

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    I'm voting to close this question. It can be answered by a conjugation table (i.e. mixed declension with indefinite article)
    – infinitezero
    Mar 29, 2022 at 17:32
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    The short answer is that the there's no rule that says some declined form of an adjective can be the same as the declined comparative for another form. "wichtiger" is masculine positive (that is neither comparative nor superlative) nominative of "wichtig".
    – idmean
    Mar 29, 2022 at 17:35
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    What you seem not to be aware of is how adjectives are declined in German. Please inform yourself about this before asking questions about German adjective forms because otherwise your question is likely to be closed because it can be answered by a declension table.
    – RHa
    Mar 29, 2022 at 19:19
  • 2 months later, and I finally understand why this is so. When I asked this question, I was pretty new to German and didn't know about declension, so the "check a dictionary" comments weren't helpful at all—I didn't know what to check for. Is there a "minimum proficiency" rule on this Stack Exchange?
    – shalvah
    Jun 11, 2022 at 17:22

1 Answer 1

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Check these forms of "groß":

  • Der Mann ist groß, die Fau ist groß, das Kind ist groß.
  • Der große Mann, die große Frau, das große Kind.
  • Ein großer Mann, eine große Frau, ein großes Kind.

With comparative: Der Mann ist größer als die Frau und die Frau ist größer als das Kind.

Superlative: Deshalb ist der Mann am größten unter diesen drei Personen.

The two bolded forms obviously differ for the adjective "groß", but they happen to coincide for "wichtig" (and for many more)

  • "ein wichtiger Tag" vs. "dieser Tag ist wichtiger als der andere"
  • "eine wichtige Woche" vs. "diese Woche ist wichtiger als die andere"
  • "eine wichtiges Jahr" vs. "dieses Jahr ist wichtiger als das andere"
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