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With both Russian and German I had a problem memorizing the vocabulary. German genders don't make sense - why is a table a strong, proud man, whereas a mangy,

With both Russian and German I had a problem memorizing the vocabulary. German genders don't make sense - why is a table a strong, proud man, whereas a mangy, flea-infested feral tomcat a proper lady? It helps me to compare books in translation - say a work of fiction written in English, and that same book translated into Russian. It also helps a great deal to chat with native speakers. Around here their are many Mexicans and Ukrainians, so I've been learning Mexican Spanish - it's dialect is quite different from Castillian Spanish - as well as Ukrianian.

byoung2 12y ago
I've been learning Mexican Spanish - it's dialect is quite different from Castillian Spanish I grew up in Los Angeles, so Mexican Spanish is what I speak almost fluently (though in high school AP Spanish we had to learn Castillian Spanish as well). I had trouble getting the hang of Puerto Rican Spanish, but I was able to master it by my 4th visit there (and convince the natives I was was one of them!). It was back to square one when I went to the Dominican Republic, which was a little tougher to mimic.
throwaway349 12y ago
> With both Russian and German I had a problem memorizing the vocabulary. German genders don't make sense - why is a table a strong, proud man, whereas a mangy, flea-infested feral tomcat a proper lady? Gosh this resonates. I remember learning "das Mädchen" and feeling my brain throw up its little brain-hands in resignation and defeat. I assume you've read Mark Twain's "The Awful German Language"? Link: http://crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html http://crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Awful_German_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Awful_German_Language The "Tale of the Fishwife and its Sad Fate" is so funny. Did you ever get a strategy for the German nouns besides the rules-of-thumb and raw grueling familiarization/memorization?
NameNickHN 12y ago
> German genders don't make sense - why is a table a strong, proud man, whereas a mangy, flea-infested feral tomcat a proper lady? This should be the least of your worries and - in fact - should be the last you should learn. Just pick one gender for all nouns. You'll be understood anyway.
- MichaelCrawford 12y ago
  That's not what I'm told by native German speakers. They tell me that using the wrong gender makes me sound illiterate. However I readily agree that the emphasis placed on genders by American schoolteachers is misplaced. The problem is that I myself devoted far more effort to getting the genders right than to anything else. In four years of junior high and high school study, we were never once so much as requested to practice extended conversations, however we often had written tests that we would fail were we to provide the wrong genders in our solutions. The very first time in my life I ever had a conversation of any sort in German, was a ten minute chat with a German immigrant to the US, when he interviewed me for my MIT application.

byoung2 12y ago

I've been learning Mexican Spanish - it's dialect is quite different from Castillian Spanish I grew up in Los Angeles, so Mexican Spanish is what I speak almost fluently (though in high school AP Spanish we had to learn Castillian Spanish as well). I had trouble getting the hang of Puerto Rican Spanish, but I was able to master it by my 4th visit there (and convince the natives I was was one of them!). It was back to square one when I went to the Dominican Republic, which was a little tougher to mimic.

throwaway349 12y ago

> With both Russian and German I had a problem memorizing the vocabulary. German genders don't make sense - why is a table a strong, proud man, whereas a mangy, flea-infested feral tomcat a proper lady? Gosh this resonates. I remember learning "das Mädchen" and feeling my brain throw up its little brain-hands in resignation and defeat. I assume you've read Mark Twain's "The Awful German Language"? Link: http://crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html http://crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Awful_German_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Awful_German_Language The "Tale of the Fishwife and its Sad Fate" is so funny. Did you ever get a strategy for the German nouns besides the rules-of-thumb and raw grueling familiarization/memorization?

NameNickHN 12y ago

> German genders don't make sense - why is a table a strong, proud man, whereas a mangy, flea-infested feral tomcat a proper lady? This should be the least of your worries and - in fact - should be the last you should learn. Just pick one gender for all nouns. You'll be understood anyway.

MichaelCrawford 12y ago
That's not what I'm told by native German speakers. They tell me that using the wrong gender makes me sound illiterate. However I readily agree that the emphasis placed on genders by American schoolteachers is misplaced. The problem is that I myself devoted far more effort to getting the genders right than to anything else. In four years of junior high and high school study, we were never once so much as requested to practice extended conversations, however we often had written tests that we would fail were we to provide the wrong genders in our solutions. The very first time in my life I ever had a conversation of any sort in German, was a ten minute chat with a German immigrant to the US, when he interviewed me for my MIT application.