Mark Twain also struggled with language
To continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats are female—tomcats included, of course; a person’s mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head is male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and NOT according to the sex of the individual who wears it—for in Germany all the women wear either male heads or sexless ones; a person’s nose, lips, shoulders, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven’t any sex at all. The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about a conscience from hearsay.
Dogs are male? In my language dogs are female. So I guess there is no standard for gendered language.
It is said that when English went from old English (which was gendered) to modern English, part of the problem was that the genders of the Germanic roots didn’t match the genders of the French influences so the people chose to just skip it all together.
Basically the last good decision in the creation of English
Dunno about German but in french dogs are male or female depending on their actual gender (obviously the female word has been adopted as a slur towards women, to be fair sometimes the masculine also is used that way for men).
In German, dogs are male by default (der Hund can be used as a generic term for both male and female dogs), but bitches are female (die Hündin). Cats are female by default (die Katze), but tomcats are male (der Kater).
We do not use Hündin as a slur for women, but Hund can be used as a slur for men.
German has both genders for dogs, but since the variants look (and sound) slightly different, it’s not instantly obvious:
Der Hund - a male dog
Die Hündin - a female dogThe male word is also used as slur for men in Québec. It’s usually accompanied by copious religious profanity and a few tasteful adjectives.
- C’est un ostie de câlisse de chien sale à marde, Tabarnak!
There’s absolutely no standard. A common trope among language learners of gendered languages whose mother tongue is also gendered is that they always pick the wrong gender for everything.
I asked my Francophone buddy that grew up in backwoods Quebec how the hell he kept it all in his head. He said that he never bothered.
If it had an “e” on the end, he just assumed it was feminine.
If he was drunk, he didn’t give a single flying tabernak.
How does anyone manage to keep allll the words pronunciation and spelling they know is already amazing, craming pronouns on top of that isn’t much worse
It is not a problem for native speakers though. These kinds of things are only something you think about if you are learning it as a second language later in life. If you grew up with them you just aborb the information and use it without thinking about it.
Like adjective order in English. If you point it out to the average native speaker more than likely they won’t even know they do it.
There’s a pattern to it. I don’t know what it is, and I’m not sure anyone knows consciously. But for example, when creating new words (eg. fantasy/sci-fi context) there usually isn’t any confusion as to what that word’s gender will be, it just sounds bad with the wrong pronoun. There are a few exceptions of course, same as “autobus” and “avion” which technically have a gender assigned but people toss a coin every time.
I like when the gender changes what the noun is. Here are a couple Spanish examples: la cometa = the kite (feminine) or el cometa = the comet (masculine) la papa = the potato (feminine) or el papa = the Pope (masculine).
Swahili has 18 genders, though only 16 are in active use.
I didn’t know Swahili was that progressive.
Tanzanians pride themselves on everybody getting along.
Spanish is also easier than French because you can mostly guess the gender based on the ending of the word. Most often if the word ends in “a” it’s female (la marca, la hora, la vida, la ventana). If it ends in “o” it’s mostly male (el teatro, el dormitorio, el niño…) And for the nouns that don’t end in “a” or “o” there are often patterns. When there are exceptions, it’s often because it’s a borrowed word or a shortened word. Like “la moto” for the motorcycle, but the full word for motorcycle is “la motocycleta”, same with “la foto” -> “la fotografia”.
French also has some patterns, but not the easy a -> female, o -> male rule that Spanish has.
In French, it’s ‘le pénis,’ but nobody says that. ‘Dick,’ is feminine (la bite.)
Also, ‘vagina’ is masculine, but ‘pussy’ is feminine, because if you were to say ‘le chat’ it would mean a cat, but by feminising the word, it becomes ‘la chatte,’ meaning pussy.
As someone who grew up Anglophone, I actually find gendered languages much more precise. On the other hand, in order to make yourself understood one must have a rich vocabulary, because the definitions of words are often more narrow than in English.
And don’t even get me started on phrasal verbs… English is messy.
You’d better back down before this blows up or i break down
Pure poetry.
back up - actual phrase
break up - actual phrase
Why no blow down?
I don’t get the weirdness of phrasal verbs? It’s a basic staple of every Indoeuropean language to generate verbs by tacking on prepositions. Ok, it’s a bit weird to use prepositions after the word, but that’s just standard Germanic separable verbs that are a bit regulized. So what?
They’re just so ubiquitous in English. In my experience, people coming from the Romance languages have a very hard time with them, because most of the actions they describe are a single verb in their mother tongues. Imagine having to remember what two words mean, but then also having to remember that when you use the two words together, they form a distinct, sometimes even unrelated, meaning.
And there’s thousands.
Well, Romance languages have thousands, too, like e.g. French poser and sup-poser, dé-poser, re-poser, trans-poser, pro-poser, im-poser, ex-poser, pré-poser, anté-poser, op-poser, super-poser, com-poser, juxta-poser, ap-poser, dis-poser, postposer,
If I call up a random French or Spanish article on wikipedia, a decent amount, if not the majority of verbs (not counting auxilliary verbs) are compounds. Somehow Romance speakers seem to have lost the ability to spot them, a Mexican coworker of mine was absolutely convinced Spanish does not have compound verbs as well.
Oh – I see. The Romance prepositions have changed. Knowing Latin I cannot not recognise the loads of compound verbs, but with sur, de, derriere, travers, par, en, hors, avant and so on the compounds are not recognisable any longer and our poor Romance friends have to learn all the words by themselves instead of nice semilogical groups.
Sorry, I don’t understand what I am seeing here. Is that someone xeeting a screenshot of someone reporting to Duolingo that penis should be feminine, not masculine in Spanish?
I would love to see that discuss
For all of the shit people talk about the English language, this is a big thing I appreciate about it. What the hell was the point of even gendering random things from the start? In German, the main gendering are die, der, and das with das being gender neutral. I would like to see a world where in scenarios like that they just move everything to das.
I think it’s to make it less ambiguous.
In English you just use the same word and figure it out from context. Someone else gave some other Spanish examples but I like “right” (direction) = “la derecha” vs “right” (human rights) = “los derechos”.
Of course there’s still so many variants of meaning that grammatical gender doesn’t help much.
If you’re writing a poem in German, you can apparently switch the positions of the subject, object and indirect object without changing the meaning, since the gender and article of the word indicate whether it’s the subject (Nominativ), object (Akkusativ) or indirect object (Dativ). (e.g. subject: der Mann, object: den Mann, indirect object: dem Mann)
You don’t need grammatical gender at all for that though. Says a native speaker of an agglutinative language
Now if you would level up once more and stopped having gendered pronouns.
That’s the ultimate level 😀
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Yes, but what if you’re a man married to a man? Which one is the washing machine? 🤌
My body is a MACHINE that turns DIRTY things into CLEAN things. /skeleton-deadlift-meme
I am.
(j/k; I’m pretty poor at cleaning things.)
One of the few genders German and French agree on is that a machine is female.
So, if a man is considered to be a machine he is female in that field.
“Europeans solve trans bathroom problem, whoever does the laundry, pees in the ladies room”
Here’s a simple trick:
Apply misogyny and sexism /s
Buuuut cars are a men thing aren’t they? And yet it’s la voiture… Curious…
If you can make mysoginistic jokes about it, then it works : men get in cars just like in women. => so it’s “la”
😏
on dit un char.
Cousiiiiiinnnnn ❤️
On va éviter le sujet des synonymes familiers du mot enfant en français de France hein, clin d’oeil bourrage du coude
Doesn’t work for le lave-linge though.
Both! Un lave-linge. Or, une machine à laver.
¿Por qué no los dos?
Is it possible to bash your way though this, as a foreigner, by getting the gender wrong half the time? Are mis-genedered nouns sometimes homophones for completely different things, or can you be understood with bad grammar, regardless?
I say this since sometimes “bad/wrong” is less about understanding and more about “that sounds funny” or “nobody talks like that.”
You will be understood, it will just give people a small pause.
Sometimes it may cause confusion, like “the phone (he) went through the washing machine (she) and now <she/he> is broken” changes meaning if you get the pronoun wrong. But then if you are used to disambiguate thIs kind of situation - and you have to in english - it shouldn’t happen too often
It would be like in English if someone says the “I took the fono to the storage but he didn’t have batterons for it” when you mean “I took the phone to the store but he didn’t have batteries for it” Without the correct-gendered article it sounds wrong, and sometimes it changes the meaning so it’s a different word. But, if there’s enough context often you can figure out what someone is trying to say. But, if you’re the kind of foreigner who doesn’t know the genders for common things, you also probably have a very strong accent and are making all kinds of other errors, like using the wrong articles, getting the word order wrong, etc.
In the end, a lot of it is about context and how else you’re trying to communicate. Like, if you’re holding the phone and say “fono” it will be obvious what you mean. If someone knows you were trying to get a replacement battery, then there will be enough context to understand batterons.
English is such a poor language that they only have the article The and nouns without genders.
Seethe and cope.
My native language doesn’t have any articles and there is no distinction between he and she.
Japanese?
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How progressive.
Y’all would love Irish. There is no word for “yes” or “no”.
How do you say “no means no”
I’m a bit rusty but I think it’s “Feck’off ya’cunt”.
Only parents, priests, those in front of children or those in pleasant company say feck. We’re more or less married to the Aussies with our love of the vulgar words. 🇮🇪 ❤️ 🇦🇺
Eh, that’s a great question. My Irish used to be good enough that I’d be able to answer that but I’m not sure what the direct translation would be. There is a word that’s very close to “no” which is “níl” (neel) but in general it’s short for “níl mé” (neel may - I am not).
In the present tense there is “tá” (taw) which is essentially short for “tá mé” (taw may - I am) but for example the answer to the question “Were you?” is “Ní raimh mé” (nee r-ow may) which is “I was not” but it is contextual. The pronunciation of “raimh” also varies by each of the 4 provinces along with every other word which is confusing as fuck. Some would say “rev” for “raimh”.
In general it’s the positive or negative of the verb though - were you? I was. Did you? I did. Will you? I will. Did she? She did etc.
Someone with better Irish may be along to hopefully make a show of me.
edit: Google translate says “ciallaíonn ní nach bhfuil” is “no means no” but there is no way in hell any actual Irish speaker would say those words when the context is so simple.
“ní nach bhfuil” (nee noch will) is “no is not”, kinda. ciallaíonn is “means” straight up though.
In general it’s the positive or negative of the verb though - were you? I was. Did you? I did. Will you? I will. Did she? She did etc.
So the verb has a negative declension, or is it just some kind of conjunction that negates the verb?
Either way, that’s kind of beautiful. English has a problem where one can ask a compound question, and replying “no” doesn’t clarify a damn thing. This would be impossible in Irish, since you’d have to pick one or some combination of questions to reply to, as the verb-form is required.
So the verb has a negative declension, or is it just some kind of conjunction that negates the verb?
It’s so long since I used declension that I honestly can’t remember it’s use but you repeat the verb but in the positive or negative form and there are differences if that makes sense?
Like “Do you understand?” is “I understand” and “I do not understand” is a little different.
I’m teaching my youngest lad Irish and I’ll regularly ask him “An dtuigeann tú” (on diggin too) and he’ll respond with “tuigim” (“tig-im” - “I understand” (which is strictly a contraction)).
edit: The negative would be “Ní thuigim” which we would pronounce as “nee higim” (I do not understand) so there’s a definite change in the word for the negative.
edit 2: The answers to “were you?” would be bhí mé “vee may” (I was) and Ní raimh mé “nee r-ow may” (I was not) so it is quite different to answer in the positive or negative.
This is a better response than I could have hoped for; consider my curiosity sated, and I am now fascinated. Thank you for sharing this.
You’re very welcome :)
“Feck aff ye daft coont.”
La machine à laver
Le lave linge
It’s beautiful 🙃
Common nonbinary French W
People trying to justify french nouns gender thinking of people’s gender really are missing the point. Whether a word is masculine or feminine is totally arbitrary and in no way shape or form do french people even remotely think about it. Words are words, when we learn a word we learn whether it’s “le” or “la”. And even us frenchies get them wrong all the time, words most people never remember include petale, tentacule, mi-temps, après-midi and its totally fine to use either when you dont know 🤷
Exactly.
After a while, most words (with exceptions) just ‘feel’ like one gender or the other, but nobody ever thinks about it in terms of ‘sex’. I barely even think about it at all, and I’ve only been speaking French daily for a couple years at this point.
Although it still bothers me that ‘silicone’ is feminine. It’s just not logical.
The polymer silicone is masculine 👌just the chemical is feminine apparently
Typical.
La richesse de la langue ne cesse jamais de m’étonner.
It’s so hard for no reason 😑
In my language we have genders for every noun. But it is trivially deducted from the spelling/pronunciation of that noun.
Tell me the Gender of Nutella or Yogurt, then :)
La nutella (she) y el (he) yogurt.
Nutella – female, Yogurt – male.
curious: but why? is there a formula or is it a combination of memorization with relations? ie: “i dont remember the gender of a trash can but I know a cooking pot is male and I cook like trash so a trash can is male?”
usually if it ends in “a” it’s feminine versus “o” for masculine, but there are exceptions for that too!
interesting. language is interesting.
And easy. For example “futbolista” is “female football player”, because it ends in “a”, and “futbolista” is “male football player” because… Wait what?
Another easy example is “mar” (sea). It’s clearly masculine. Except if you’re a poet in love with the sea and you make it female because “no homo” I guess.
OK, the sea is fluid (pun intended), makes sense. What about the computer? “Computadora” is femenine. But it’s synonym “ordenador” is masculine. So it’s a property of the word, not what it represents. This creates a rare case when someone use the english “desktop” to refer to the computer, but still inherit the female from “computadora”, so it’s “la desktop”.
Or my favorite, Mano (hand), witch is strong so obviously male. But if it’s little hand (manita) then it’s not strong so female. Except in some counties were remains male.
Next week in "WTF is wrong with Spanish: ser and estar (“to be” and “to be, but like different”)
I don’t know what dialect you speak where “Mano” is masculine. In Spain it is feminine, and I’ve never heard anyone say “el mano”. I’ve also never heard anyone say “el manita”.
I don’t think “ser” and “estar” being different verbs is at all wrong with spanish. They are very clearly different concepts.
You can be something because it is part of you “I am tall” or you can be something situationally “I am at the library”. What is weird to me is that English uses the same verb for those clearly different concepts.
Somehow the ser vs estar distinction almost makes sense. I don’t like it but I understand it
Last letter/sound matters. Some – female, some – male, some – neutral (we have 3 grammatical genders in my language)
“matters” but curious where the logic or rules come from and is it harder than expected for folks who cannot hear the sound?
logic or rules come from
That is a “natural” language. Not C++ or Esperanto. No logic. Just bullshit and idiocy.
is it harder than expected for folks who cannot hear the sound?
Absolutely trivial for anyone. If the word ends with “a”, it is female. If any consonant – male, “o” – neutral.
interesting. i know there are some linguistics books out there I may look into any about this. appreciated the replies!
Nah pal it’s le Nutella. Don’t ask me why cause I don’t know. The word ending in ‘a’ isn’t a valid argument because you don’t drink une Fanta do you? Or do you?
I believe this comment chain is about spanish, not french.
In Spanish the last letter of the word is right most of the time. We do say “una Fanta”.
Well it’s on a thread about how ridiculous French is
Is the gender of yogurt under debate in Germany? I am only aware of Nutella and butter. Yogurt was always male.
According to Duden, Joghurt may have any gender. I agree with you though that it should be der Joghurt. Edit: It seems like die/das Joghurt is mostly used outside Germany.
What is it with the Austrians always stirring up shit?
What if it’s a loan word from another language, like “the facebook” (El Feis) or “playstation” or “hentai”?
Doesn’t matter, the rules are the same.
Ok, so what’s the rule for those 3 examples?
My two main fluent languages are not gendered. It was such a weird concept when I started to learn French.
Try Polish. Our verbs and adjectives are also gendered.
A washing machine is feminine, how is it in french?
Feminine too, like all the machines
