8 ms·

German is not that easy, either, though. Das/Der/Die is a constant source of frustration. Its never easy to remember.

by helpfulContrib 2y ago

DrillShopper 2y ago
When in doubt use das like half the population of Berlin.
- jeffbee 2y ago
  Can we get the other half to convert? Gendered articles are so annoying to remember, especially if you have to travel between German-speaking places that don't agree on all the noun genders. English speakers cannot be expected to understand this!
  - chimeracoder 2y ago
    > Can we get the other half to convert? Gendered articles are so annoying to remember, especially if you have to travel between German-speaking places that don't agree on all the noun genders. English speakers cannot be expected to understand this! That's what Dutch did. As spoken in most of the Netherlands, Dutch "eliminated" grammatical gender... which is to say it now has two grammatical genders: "both" ("de") and "neither" ("het").
inglor_cz 2y ago
It is doubly so if your native language is also a gendered one, but with different genders for common objects. It makes a mess in your head. CZ: ten nůž (masc.) - DE: das Messer (neutr.) - EN: knife CZ: ten svět (masc.) - DE: die Welt (fem.) - EN: world CZ: ta žába (fem.) - DE: der Frosch (masc.) - EN: frog Also, personified Death and rivers seem to be masculine-coded in Germanic languages, and feminine-coded in Slavic ones.
- Muromec 2y ago
  To nobody's surprise ніж, світ, жаба have exactly right genders so it's Germans who are confused.
  - inglor_cz 2y ago
    But, for some weird reason, modern Bulgarian mutated gender of "evening" to feminine: Тази вечер even though in the greeting "good evening", the old masculine form remains: добър вечер Bulgarian in general seems to be the Chad of the Slavic language family :)
- int_19h 2y ago
  It also doesn't help when words in a single language that can refer to the same thing have different grammatical genders (e.g. месяц vs луна).
  - inglor_cz 2y ago
    For extra spiciness, try the same word in all three genders, with different meanings in each one: DE: der Band ... volume (as in "the second volume in a collection of books") die Band ... group (as in "the Beatles are a group") das Band ... ribbon
OptionOfT 2y ago
Same in French. Le and la. (Masculine or feminine). In Dutch: De and het, where de is for masculine and feminine, and het for ... I don't even know. And I'm a native Dutch speaker. Edit: German also has cases: Nominative, accusative, dative and genitive, like Greek. Latin had a 5th one.
- Muromec 2y ago
  How about up to seven cases and three genders in Slavic languages? That's the real struggle.

German is not that easy, either, though. Das/Der/Die is a constant source of frustration. Its never easy to remember.

DrillShopper 2y ago

When in doubt use das like half the population of Berlin.

jeffbee 2y ago
Can we get the other half to convert? Gendered articles are so annoying to remember, especially if you have to travel between German-speaking places that don't agree on all the noun genders. English speakers cannot be expected to understand this!
- chimeracoder 2y ago
  > Can we get the other half to convert? Gendered articles are so annoying to remember, especially if you have to travel between German-speaking places that don't agree on all the noun genders. English speakers cannot be expected to understand this! That's what Dutch did. As spoken in most of the Netherlands, Dutch "eliminated" grammatical gender... which is to say it now has two grammatical genders: "both" ("de") and "neither" ("het").

inglor_cz 2y ago

It is doubly so if your native language is also a gendered one, but with different genders for common objects. It makes a mess in your head. CZ: ten nůž (masc.) - DE: das Messer (neutr.) - EN: knife CZ: ten svět (masc.) - DE: die Welt (fem.) - EN: world CZ: ta žába (fem.) - DE: der Frosch (masc.) - EN: frog Also, personified Death and rivers seem to be masculine-coded in Germanic languages, and feminine-coded in Slavic ones.

Muromec 2y ago
To nobody's surprise ніж, світ, жаба have exactly right genders so it's Germans who are confused.
- inglor_cz 2y ago
  But, for some weird reason, modern Bulgarian mutated gender of "evening" to feminine: Тази вечер even though in the greeting "good evening", the old masculine form remains: добър вечер Bulgarian in general seems to be the Chad of the Slavic language family :)
int_19h 2y ago
It also doesn't help when words in a single language that can refer to the same thing have different grammatical genders (e.g. месяц vs луна).
- inglor_cz 2y ago
  For extra spiciness, try the same word in all three genders, with different meanings in each one: DE: der Band ... volume (as in "the second volume in a collection of books") die Band ... group (as in "the Beatles are a group") das Band ... ribbon

OptionOfT 2y ago

Same in French. Le and la. (Masculine or feminine). In Dutch: De and het, where de is for masculine and feminine, and het for ... I don't even know. And I'm a native Dutch speaker. Edit: German also has cases: Nominative, accusative, dative and genitive, like Greek. Latin had a 5th one.

Muromec 2y ago
How about up to seven cases and three genders in Slavic languages? That's the real struggle.