4 ms·

> Will somebody please explain to me why 'ezel' (donkey) is masculine, 'paard' (horse) is neuter and 'antilope' (antelope) is feminine? Don't worry, Dutch peop

> Will somebody please explain to me why 'ezel' (donkey) is masculine, 'paard' (horse) is neuter and 'antilope' (antelope) is feminine? Don't worry, Dutch people don't know this either. Unfortunately that means for each word you'll have to learn whether it's a "de" or a "het" word. Something that slowly happens over time as your vocabulary expands. This is one of the main reasons why Dutch has a reputation of being difficult to master.

xiaq 12y ago
You must be joking about Dutch being difficult to master. Dutch grammar is in every aspect simpler than German. The orthography is a bit awkward though. Also, it is weird that Tannenbaum makes a difference between masculine and feminine at all, since in standard Netherlandic Dutch they have since long ago merged into the common gender ("de" word). I guess he just got that knowledge from some old grammar book...
- danieldk 12y ago
  Also, it is weird that Tannenbaum makes a difference between masculine and feminine at all, since in standard Netherlandic Dutch they have since long ago merged into the common gender ("de" word). Yes, but it is still relevant for pronouns: Dit is een ezel, [hij/zij/het] staat in de wei. Whether most speakers actually know the correct gender and thus pronoun is another question ;).
  - gpvos 12y ago
    Actually, in modern Dutch the actual sex of the animal determines the gender to use, not the grammatical gender. If unknown, use the male form. (This may be different in Flanders.) The difference between "het" and "de" is actually also eroding at the moment.
    - danieldk 12y ago
      Actually, in modern Dutch the actual sex of the animal determines the gender to use, not the grammatical gender. If unknown, use the male form. (This may be different in Flanders.) ...if you know the sex of the animal. Also see here (the 'Toelichting'): http://taaladvies.net/taal/advies/vraag/1631/zijn_haar_de_muis_heeft_staart_bezeerd/ http://taaladvies.net/taal/advies/vraag/1631/zijn_haar_de_mu... Of course, these annoyances only exist because the distinction is going away, but hasn't gone completely.
  - xiaq 12y ago
    Yes, the masculine/feminine distinction is not completely lost (yet) in modern Dutch. But > Whether most speakers actually know the correct gender and thus pronoun is another question ;). There is no "correct" grammar from a descriptive point of view. When most people don't distinguish masculine nouns from feminine ones any more, linguists tend to say "the m/f distinction is disappearing" instead of "there is a m/f distinction but most people don't know the correct gender".
- micheljansen 12y ago
  I didn't say it's difficult to master (I can't know, I grew up speaking it natively), but it certainly has that reputation. Looking at it as objectively as I can, it does not look any more complex or inconsistent than English, but obviously it's much easier to get exposure to that language through movies, music and the Internet than it is to Dutch.
danieldk 12y ago
Unfortunately that means for each word you'll have to learn whether it's a "de" or a "het" word. It's a good thing, since masculine/feminine doesn't matter much in the end (compared to e.g. German). Of course, it does matter for pronouns, but we get them wrong all the time anyway. My wife is an excellent non-native speaker of Dutch. She has most problems with finding the right prepositions and the usual phoneme differences (especially diphthongs). I can imagine that for a speakers of a non-Germanic languages V2 word order can also be strange (the finite verb is in the final position, however moves to the second position in declarative main clauses), and as a consequence what goes into the vor/mittel/nachfeld. (Note: I am not an expert in language acquisition at all, just extrapolating from a sample of 1 :)).
gadders 12y ago
I've always wondered when someone names or creates a new device or object, who decides what gender it should be.
- andrey-p 12y ago
  At least in Bulgaria, people go for whatever the word sounds like. Rough rule of thumb is, words that end in -a tend to sound feminine, words with -o tend to sound neuter. So I'd say едно Ардуино or one neuter Arduino.
- xiaq 12y ago
  There are two types of "new" names: "native" neologisms and loanwords. Gender assignment of the former usually works by analogy with existing words; the latter is a more interesting topic - go search "gender assignment loanword".
gpvos 12y ago
Many languages have more difficult gender systems than Dutch. Dutch grammar is easier than German; our orthography is a little less regular than German, but still orders of magnitude more regular than French, Danish or English. The main difficulty is that you cannot practice speaking Dutch until you are already quite advanced, because if you speak broken Dutch, you will in all cases get an answer in pretty good English (heck; our broken German or French is probably still better than a learner's broken Dutch).
- xiaq 12y ago
  > The main difficulty is that you cannot practice speaking Dutch until you are already quite advanced, because if you speak broken Dutch, you will in all cases get an answer in pretty good English. I can confirm this as a foreigner who has lived in the Netherlands for the past six months :)
mehedi_ku06 12y ago
Hello! Thank you for your question. I’d like to try to compare it to my previous experience of practicing English through Skype. I did around 10 conversations over Skype with a native speaker from http://preply.com/en/english-by-skype http://preply.com/en/english-by-skype. And I was pretty satisfied with their Quality. I think they have a strong teaching quality, following their course curriculum now I can speak English like a native they also provide local tutors, but I Want to try another option.

xiaq 12y ago

You must be joking about Dutch being difficult to master. Dutch grammar is in every aspect simpler than German. The orthography is a bit awkward though. Also, it is weird that Tannenbaum makes a difference between masculine and feminine at all, since in standard Netherlandic Dutch they have since long ago merged into the common gender ("de" word). I guess he just got that knowledge from some old grammar book...

danieldk 12y ago
Also, it is weird that Tannenbaum makes a difference between masculine and feminine at all, since in standard Netherlandic Dutch they have since long ago merged into the common gender ("de" word). Yes, but it is still relevant for pronouns: Dit is een ezel, [hij/zij/het] staat in de wei. Whether most speakers actually know the correct gender and thus pronoun is another question ;).
- gpvos 12y ago
  Actually, in modern Dutch the actual sex of the animal determines the gender to use, not the grammatical gender. If unknown, use the male form. (This may be different in Flanders.) The difference between "het" and "de" is actually also eroding at the moment.
  - danieldk 12y ago
    Actually, in modern Dutch the actual sex of the animal determines the gender to use, not the grammatical gender. If unknown, use the male form. (This may be different in Flanders.) ...if you know the sex of the animal. Also see here (the 'Toelichting'): http://taaladvies.net/taal/advies/vraag/1631/zijn_haar_de_muis_heeft_staart_bezeerd/ http://taaladvies.net/taal/advies/vraag/1631/zijn_haar_de_mu... Of course, these annoyances only exist because the distinction is going away, but hasn't gone completely.
- xiaq 12y ago
  Yes, the masculine/feminine distinction is not completely lost (yet) in modern Dutch. But > Whether most speakers actually know the correct gender and thus pronoun is another question ;). There is no "correct" grammar from a descriptive point of view. When most people don't distinguish masculine nouns from feminine ones any more, linguists tend to say "the m/f distinction is disappearing" instead of "there is a m/f distinction but most people don't know the correct gender".
micheljansen 12y ago
I didn't say it's difficult to master (I can't know, I grew up speaking it natively), but it certainly has that reputation. Looking at it as objectively as I can, it does not look any more complex or inconsistent than English, but obviously it's much easier to get exposure to that language through movies, music and the Internet than it is to Dutch.

danieldk 12y ago

Unfortunately that means for each word you'll have to learn whether it's a "de" or a "het" word. It's a good thing, since masculine/feminine doesn't matter much in the end (compared to e.g. German). Of course, it does matter for pronouns, but we get them wrong all the time anyway. My wife is an excellent non-native speaker of Dutch. She has most problems with finding the right prepositions and the usual phoneme differences (especially diphthongs). I can imagine that for a speakers of a non-Germanic languages V2 word order can also be strange (the finite verb is in the final position, however moves to the second position in declarative main clauses), and as a consequence what goes into the vor/mittel/nachfeld. (Note: I am not an expert in language acquisition at all, just extrapolating from a sample of 1 :)).

gadders 12y ago

I've always wondered when someone names or creates a new device or object, who decides what gender it should be.

andrey-p 12y ago
At least in Bulgaria, people go for whatever the word sounds like. Rough rule of thumb is, words that end in -a tend to sound feminine, words with -o tend to sound neuter. So I'd say едно Ардуино or one neuter Arduino.
xiaq 12y ago
There are two types of "new" names: "native" neologisms and loanwords. Gender assignment of the former usually works by analogy with existing words; the latter is a more interesting topic - go search "gender assignment loanword".

gpvos 12y ago

Many languages have more difficult gender systems than Dutch. Dutch grammar is easier than German; our orthography is a little less regular than German, but still orders of magnitude more regular than French, Danish or English. The main difficulty is that you cannot practice speaking Dutch until you are already quite advanced, because if you speak broken Dutch, you will in all cases get an answer in pretty good English (heck; our broken German or French is probably still better than a learner's broken Dutch).

xiaq 12y ago
> The main difficulty is that you cannot practice speaking Dutch until you are already quite advanced, because if you speak broken Dutch, you will in all cases get an answer in pretty good English. I can confirm this as a foreigner who has lived in the Netherlands for the past six months :)

mehedi_ku06 12y ago

Hello! Thank you for your question. I’d like to try to compare it to my previous experience of practicing English through Skype. I did around 10 conversations over Skype with a native speaker from http://preply.com/en/english-by-skype http://preply.com/en/english-by-skype. And I was pretty satisfied with their Quality. I think they have a strong teaching quality, following their course curriculum now I can speak English like a native they also provide local tutors, but I Want to try another option.