Under what I’ve been taught, “大した” often means “great” or “considerable”.
However, I’m also well aware of the immense similarity this word has to words such as “大きい”, which means “big”, “大きさ”, which means “size”, and “太い”, which means “fat”.
With this in mind, and already knowing just how context-sensitive the Japanese language can be, would " 大した" be an appropriate use of language in a normal conversation? If, say, I wanted to tell someone that they were great, would I use “大した” to compliment them? Or would this likely be misconstrued as an insult regarding their size/weight?
It’s an odd question, but I’d rather ask it now and get an answer rather than embarrass myself in the future.
Would you tell someone they were considerable? It’s a different meaning of great than, “Hey, you’re a great guy!”
I wouldn’t consider any of the words you have listed as having immense similarity; they are related by virtue of them containing the same kanji (except 太い - I’m not sure why you included that), but they are just about as different in meaning as their English counterparts.
The context sentences can be helpful in getting to understand the usage of the different vocab using the same kanji - I’d recommend going back and looking them over.
Also keep in mind that this word can’t be used as a predicate, only modifying another word.
In other words [something]は大した is ungrammatical. It can’t be used that way.
It’s always in the form of 大した[something], however that would appear in a sentence.
So… first forum post and I don’t really know what I’m doing… but if I’m using 大した[something], do I need to put any particles like の in the middle? Like 大した の [something]?