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It's almost always "die Ukraine" in German at least. FWIW, there's a handful countries with definite article in German including Switzerland, Turkey and the US
by ginko 5y ago
It's almost always "die Ukraine" in German at least.
FWIW, there's a handful countries with definite article in German including Switzerland, Turkey and the US:
https://deutschtraining.org/deutsche-grammatik/artikel/laender-mit-artikel/ https://deutschtraining.org/deutsche-grammatik/artikel/laend...
- nautilius 5y agoIs there any (political?) pattern there? It's "Wir fahren nach Russland", but "Wir fahren in die Sowjetunion", Wir fahren in den Kongo" but "Wir fahren nach Kamerun".
- ginko 5y agoI don't think there's a reason, tbh. See the list I added to my earlier post. It's all kinds of countries with relatively little in common.
- nautilius 5y agoInteresting list. It really doesn't seem to have any agenda, I think it would be hard to argue that Switzerland or the Netherlands are somehow regarded less than Austria or Belgium.
- thenoblesunfish 5y agoNot as far as I can tell. Maybe you can squint at some of them and come up with a story, but in practice it's just another set of essentially arbitrary things, like the grammatical gender of the names of rivers, to memorize when you learn German.
- weinzierl 5y agoThe US requires an article in German because it is a plural (United States). Switzerland and Turkey require it because they are female. Ukraine is female too and therefore "die Ukraine" is correct. Most state names in German are neuter and go without article. Some state names can be used as male with article (der Kongo) or neuter without (Kongo). Iran is the most common example of this category, in the news "in Iran" and "im Iran" are both used frequently
- Koshkin 5y agoOn behalf of English readers I plead that this German article be replaced with something else.