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Why do nouns have "random" articles attached to them? In latin languages like Portuguese the ending of the word tells you which article (masculine or feminine)

Why do nouns have "random" articles attached to them? In latin languages like Portuguese the ending of the word tells you which article (masculine or feminine) to use, but in German only "die" has some rules. This is my biggest griped with the language and it's major flaw, when you pair that with adjective declensions and other sort of structures that rely on KNOWING which article to use.

bashkiddie 1y ago
From a foreign learners perspective, it is easier to just learn the article together with the noun. But there are rules for 2/3 of cases. https://sprachekulturkommunikation.com/genus-der-substantive-maskulin-neutral-oder-feminin-definition-und-regeln/ https://sprachekulturkommunikation.com/genus-der-substantive... You can classify by suffix. * -ung, -heit, -keit -> feminin, e.g. die Schönheit * -ling -> masculin, e.g. der Flüchtling * -chen, -lein -> neutrum, e.g das Mädchen You can classify by category. Every alcoholic drink is masculin, except for beer. You can classify by phonetic spelling. That is probably the closest you have to Portugese.
- ur-whale 1y ago
  > there are rules for 2/3 of cases LOL. And are they rules to remember which word falls in the 2/3rd ?
  - nitros 1y ago
    Nope, but it's not so different to irregular plural forms or verbs in english. Afaik: At some point in the history of the language there would(?) have been rules for these nouns, but not today.
- bmicraft 1y ago
  > Every alcoholic drink is masculine - das Piña Colada - die Bowle - die Weißschorl (ÖD: der weiße Spritzer)
  - Krasnol 1y ago
    > - das Piña Colada Been living here for 35 years, and I'd have said "die Piña Colada".
  - School-Cotton 1y ago
    That’s especially maddening because Spanish does have gender, and “piña colada” is feminine and even involves feminine gender agreement between the noun and the adjective.
anvandare 1y ago
The gender of a noun is just a noun class. But because Germanic languages lie more toward the analytic end of the morphological typology continuum (whereas Romance languages lie more toward the synthetical end) the information is latent - or rather, the task of conveying that information is left to other words (the articles). Just imagine if someone studied Portuguese but learned vocabulary like this, never bothering with the ending vowel: 'gat-' 'cas-' 'bolach-' Similarly, 'die' should be considered an inherent part of 'Frau'. So don't learn just 'Frau', learn 'die Frau'. The article 'Die' is just as "random" as '-o' or '-a' is in Portuguese. (I'll skip the part where you can have a form of the word in both classes: gata/gato.) People like to try and find "rules" they can remember instead, but it's a pointless endeavor. Language is a Calvinball game. To make a weird tech analogy: Romance nouns are like laptops, with a touchpad built in. Germanic nouns are like desktops, you have to remember to carry a mouse* along. * Die Maus

bashkiddie 1y ago

From a foreign learners perspective, it is easier to just learn the article together with the noun. But there are rules for 2/3 of cases. https://sprachekulturkommunikation.com/genus-der-substantive-maskulin-neutral-oder-feminin-definition-und-regeln/ https://sprachekulturkommunikation.com/genus-der-substantive... You can classify by suffix. * -ung, -heit, -keit -> feminin, e.g. die Schönheit * -ling -> masculin, e.g. der Flüchtling * -chen, -lein -> neutrum, e.g das Mädchen You can classify by category. Every alcoholic drink is masculin, except for beer. You can classify by phonetic spelling. That is probably the closest you have to Portugese.

ur-whale 1y ago
> there are rules for 2/3 of cases LOL. And are they rules to remember which word falls in the 2/3rd ?
- nitros 1y ago
  Nope, but it's not so different to irregular plural forms or verbs in english. Afaik: At some point in the history of the language there would(?) have been rules for these nouns, but not today.
bmicraft 1y ago
> Every alcoholic drink is masculine - das Piña Colada - die Bowle - die Weißschorl (ÖD: der weiße Spritzer)
- Krasnol 1y ago
  > - das Piña Colada Been living here for 35 years, and I'd have said "die Piña Colada".
- School-Cotton 1y ago
  That’s especially maddening because Spanish does have gender, and “piña colada” is feminine and even involves feminine gender agreement between the noun and the adjective.

anvandare 1y ago

The gender of a noun is just a noun class. But because Germanic languages lie more toward the analytic end of the morphological typology continuum (whereas Romance languages lie more toward the synthetical end) the information is latent - or rather, the task of conveying that information is left to other words (the articles). Just imagine if someone studied Portuguese but learned vocabulary like this, never bothering with the ending vowel: 'gat-' 'cas-' 'bolach-' Similarly, 'die' should be considered an inherent part of 'Frau'. So don't learn just 'Frau', learn 'die Frau'. The article 'Die' is just as "random" as '-o' or '-a' is in Portuguese. (I'll skip the part where you can have a form of the word in both classes: gata/gato.) People like to try and find "rules" they can remember instead, but it's a pointless endeavor. Language is a Calvinball game. To make a weird tech analogy: Romance nouns are like laptops, with a touchpad built in. Germanic nouns are like desktops, you have to remember to carry a mouse* along. * Die Maus