I've found that most of the time, just pick the most sexist answer you can think of, and you'll typically be right!
I really don't like gendered languages.
You'd love German – there is absolutely zero system or logic behind what word has which of the three genders.
There are some general guidelines, which hold true more often than not: https://germanwithlaura.com/noun-gender/
For example, planets that don't end with an e and which aren't Venus tend to be male
Yeah, no, it doesn't make sense:
Der Mann (the man - male article)
Die Frau (the woman - female article)
Der Junge (the boy - male article)
Das Mädchen (the girl - neutral article)
Like, come on gendered articles, you had one job.
Anything with -chen/-klein (a diminutive) is neuter.
E.g. in addition to Mädchen there is Jungchen (~"youngster") that is also neuter rather than masculine.
You'll be right 50% of the times. Or 33% in german. And it doesn't match between languages. Like, "cat" is a she in german and a he in french. Often synonyms have different genders : une lettre/un courrier (both mean a mail).
I think the issue is that you are searching your mind for correlations between gender and sexism-related, which is often easier than searching for non-correlation. If I ask you "quick, think of a singer that wears leather", you'll find one instantly. But if I ask "quick, find a singer that doesn't wear leather" it takes a while, even though there more of them.
If you want a better impression of the phenomenon, open a dictionary, go over words one by one and count the points.
And also "organ" (the instrument) in french is male when singular and female when plural. "C'est un bel orgue" and "Ce sont de belles orgues".
I only studied french for a short time, but I feel like that really doesn't work for french:
Those were the two onces I could remember like this half a year after ending my french studies, but could be that those are only two uncommon counterexamples.
Also, both of these are what you would "expect" in German (die Bluse, der Gürtel)
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.
I actually find gendered languages much more precise.
Just never ask a group of Germans what the singular article of Nutella is.
Put some yogurt on that!
I do not respect gendered languages. I will not apologize for misgendering a pencil. The right form of "the" for an apple is "the apple."
hey, atleast you dont have 14 noun cases.
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.
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.
It's likely the same as English spelling. Just years and years of repeated exposure, and you eventually pick up most of it through osmosis
Check what's between the legs of the washing machine.
One of my languages has three genders for living creatures, and two genders for items. Those genders are all different from each other: humans and other living beings are male/female/living neutral, things are item neutral/item neutral. An item neutral plural is also used for groups of living beings, but not for all groups of items.
One item neutral singular can in some instances be used for a living being regardless of their gender. The other item neutral would be insulting if used about living beings, and especially dehumanising to humans (wish someone had told me this sooner).
I have no idea when to use which item neutral. Locals keep correcting me or almost imperceptibly wincing when I get it wrong, so when I want to sound more fluent I just use the item plural for singulars as well - it seems less annoying for some reason.
Oh, and for one of the item neutrals, if you accidentally use the other item neutral it means the plural of the first one. Kill me now, lol.
Which godforsaken language is that?
All good examples in comments, but in this case it's Swedish. And if not by god then I'll forsake it.
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.
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.
Female. Obviously. 😏
Yes, but what if you're a man married to a man? Which one is the washing machine? 🤌
English is such a poor language that they only have the article The and nouns without genders.
Seethe and cope.
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.
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."
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.
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
Post memes here.
A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme.
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Laittakaa meemejä tänne.
