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> As usual, it's easy to forget how hard things are for others when you're the expert. I'm sure Twain never thought about how ridiculously hard many English wor
by kergonath 6y ago
> As usual, it's easy to forget how hard things are for others when you're the expert. I'm sure Twain never thought about how ridiculously hard many English words are to spell, and how people learning English as a second language struggle quite a lot with it.
Exactly. You most often cannot guess the gender of a noun in quite a lot of languages (German, Spanish, French, etc), but most of the time you also cannot guess how an English word is pronounced without having heard it before (and made the connection with the spelling, which is sometimes very tricky).
- aspaviento 6y ago> You most often cannot guess the gender of a noun in quite a lot of languages That's far from true. In Spanish it's quite easy most of the time: Female form (-a): casa (House) taza (cup) armadura (armour) luna (moon) leona (lioness) escritora (female writer) Male form (-o/-or/-on): camión (truck) sillón (sofa) león (lion) escritor (male writer) You don't even need the article to guess which one is which one.
- pezezin 6y agoIt's not so clear and cut. For example, "acción" and any other noun that express the result of a verb ends in -ón, but they are female words. There are also plenty of male words that end in -a, and female words that end in -o: https://www.practicaespanol.com/mas-de-40-palabras-que-acaban-en-a-de-genero-masculino/ https://www.practicaespanol.com/mas-de-40-palabras-que-acaba...
- flobosg 6y agoTo add some female words ending in -o: - Female forms of occupations and roles, such as la modelo and la testigo - Shortened forms such as la foto - La mano - La líbido - La nao - La virago