Sprechen Sie deutsch? Ziellos Gedanke?

The thing is that german vocabulary is a mix of many influences since what is now Germany is in central Europe: before and in the middle ages latin (architecture, religion, warfare) and greek (science, philosophy, again religion), in the late middle ages italian (trade, finances) and after that french (noble terms after the Thirty Years' War, for example Boulevard, Chaussee, Konfit?re, Trottoir) influenced the language. Back then someone borrowed some words and made up the genders, just like in the early 1990's the pseudo-english "Handy" (cellphone) came up which is neutral. Since there are so many examples of these there is often no way to tell from the word itself if it's neutral, feminine or masculine.

There are certain endings which are always feminine, namely the endings -ung, -heit, -keit und -tion, but those are derivatives of other words anyway, for example "die Sichtung" (the sighting) from "sehen" (to see). That brings another problem though: even though the word where that derivative stems from can be either neutral, feminine or masculine, the derivative is always feminine...

Yes, German grammar is a mess... :p
 
There are certain endings which are always feminine, namely the endings -ung, -heit, -keit und -tion, but those are derivatives of other words anyway, for example "die Sichtung" (the sighting) from "sehen" (to see).

...and there are always pitfalls, e.g. der Dung :bmwpoo:
 
Well, having English as my mother tongue where gender nouns don't exist make harder or difficult. Some things make sense like "the milk". But that's only because milk comes from lady cows and women.

Erm...milk is male in Portuguese. :rofl:
 
In Italian too.

One of the biggest problems I have with German is actually memorizing nouns' gender.
 
How can pavement have a gender?

Small Tip: statistically "die" (feminine) is the most common article. If you don't know, pick "die", that has the best chance of being correct (by a small margin, but a margin no less).

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In Italian too.

One of the biggest problems I have with German is actually memorizing nouns' gender.

Same with any other language that uses them. Learning french is equally confusing in that way when you come from a german background ...
 
Same with any other language that uses them. Learning french is equally confusing in that way when you come from a german background ...

Of course it is. French genders for nouns make mostly perfect sense to me, thanks to our common latin ancestry.

This is why I have problems with German on this. I would have similar problems with any non-latin language with gendered nouns.
 
There's some words that sound similar to English words and when the software I'm using asks to write stuff out after it's spoken to me, I will write the English word. So far, it's been "is" and "ist." So, when I proofread and then am told it's wrong, I don't catch it.
 
There's some words that sound similar to English words and when the software I'm using asks to write stuff out after it's spoken to me, I will write the English word. So far, it's been "is" and "ist." So, when I proofread and then am told it's wrong, I don't catch it.

Speak the words in your head while you write them. The T in 'ist' is quite a strong and distinctive sound, hard to ignore or forget :)
 
Speak the words in your head while you write them. The T in 'ist' is quite a strong and distinctive sound, hard to ignore or forget :)

Oh I know, and I say it that way, my fingers have a disconnection.
 
Sprechen Sie deutsch? Ziellos Gedanke?

Das ist nicht gut.

I do have dschinghis khan on my side to help me learn. :p
 
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I am very happy that I grew up with German and learned English instead of vice versa. From an objective perspecetive that is the easier way. By miles. Many many miles. :p
 
The gender noun deal is getting easier to understand as shown here:




It depends on what the noun ends in. :)

Also, how the hell is a street feminine?

It's making sense... I think.





The phrase "weit entfernt" is totally screwing me up. It sounds like "right in front," the complete opposite. :?
 
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