Hi! Today I am gonna talk about some random German nonsense that made me go "but why" or "wtf."
What the hell are gendered languages?
You can skip this if you already know, but in German, Spanish, Romanian and, dunno, probably some Slavic languages, nouns like table or cat have a birth-assigned gender associated to them that you must reluctantly keep in mind when you want to use the word and say things like "tables" or "a table" or "the table" or even "big table."
If you don't speak a gendered language, this is confusing. Why on Earth is a table a he... or is it a she? Who knows! In romance languages you can kind of guess what gender it is based on the vowel the word ends in:
The sky in Spanish is "el cielo". It ends in -o, so it is masculine. The way we say "the" in this case is "el".
The moon in Spanish is "la luna". It ends in -a, so it is feminine. The way we say "the" in this case is "la".
Problem in Spanish is "problema". It ends in -a, so it is... a Greek word so for some reason it is masculine and you have to say el problema.
If it's already so illogical in Spanish, just wait until you learn German because:
the masculine "the" is "der"
the feminine "the" is "die"
the neuter "the" is das
the plural "the" is "die"
These also change depending on the way you use them in a sentence, but I won't get into that now. So how do you know which word uses what? Well, you don't haha! Their our know rools. Ok there are some rules, like all words ending in -ung or -keit are feminine, but I won't get into that now. In most cases it is random or some words even have two genders for two different meanings.
Oh and if you are wondering why you we call these genders mostly feminine, masculine or neuter and not "birds" "bees" and "plan b," it is because you refer to these words by the feminine, masculine and neuter pronouns. It is kind of like in English people call ships and cars "she." Wellm in German you call a table "he", a tomato "she" and a little girl "it"... I will get into that later.
Gender curiosities
Regardless of what these words mean, do you notice a pattern here?
Das Haus -> die Häuser
Das Kind -> die Kinder
Das Buch -> die Bücher
Das Loch -> die Löcher
Das Tuch -> die Tücher
---------- -> die Ränder
The left side is a singular form and the right side is the plural form of the word. It seems like in order to form the plural of a "das" word you just add "-er" to it and put two dots (called umlauts) on a, u or o. It makes sense, so if we filled in the blanks, it should obviously be
Das Rand -> die Ränder
Yep! Congrats... you can think logically. But languages are completely illogical and "Rand" is a "der"-word. So it is "der Rand -> die Ränder". This is super uncommon and random in German, but here we go. The word means "margin" which is obviously such a special word to be such a special exception.
Also check this out:
Der Teil (the part)
Das Teil (the part)
What the..... ? Why does it have two genders?
Well, Der Teil refers to a part of something that you cannot just break into pieces, like your part of your garden or earth.
Das Teil can kind of be replaced with "piece" because it is a part that you can separate from something big, like a piece of chocolate or dunno.
It gets better!
Das Band -> die Bänder (plural is logical at least based on the rule above lol)
Der Band -> die Bände
Die Band -> die Bands
All of these words mean different things based on the gender lol.
Das Band -> conveyor belt, ribbon and other meanings
Der Band -> volume of a book, tome
Die Band -> this one is the English word "band" meaning a musical group. It is also pronounced like "Bend" so it sounds different than the other two, but in written form they look exactly the same.
Other German things that I am like "wtf" about:
be-words
In German adding "be-" before a word kind of means you apply your action on something or someone. This is not a rule, but it is true in most cases.
Suchen means to search, besuchen means to visit someone.
Schützen means to protect, beschützen is when you protect someone
Zahlen means to pay, bezahlen is when you pay someone or something.
Kochen means to cook, bekochen is when you cook someone? Nope! It means to cook for someone! LOL.
At my previous job we had a thing called "Kollege bekocht Kollegen" which means "coworker cooks for coworker." I could not help and think that we are cooking our coworkers. In my mind this will forever be "to cook someone."
Dutch and German stuff
Speaking of cooking someone or something by accident, the past tense of the Dutch word for "to buy", kopen, is "gekocht", which is the past tense of German "kochen". When a Dutch person says "ik heb een kat gekocht" (lit. I have a cat bought), to a German speaker it sounded like they cooked a cat.
However, Dutch people probably also think that Germans are freaks because if you walk into a store in Germany where someone might actually want to attend to their customers, they will ask you "Kommen Sie klar?" (lit "do you come clearly?"). To a German ear it just means "are you doing okay? Do you need any help? Are you finding everything you need?" whereas to the Dutch ears it sounds like "are you cumming?😩💦."
German prepositions
Listen, prepositions suck in every language. You get into the car, but on the plane, wtf are you doing on the plane? Get inside the plane!
In German you can be interested in something or you can "interest yourself in something." However, the prepositions change:
You are interessiert an something, but you interessierst yourself für something. Why? Why can I not interessiert my ass an something or be interessiert für something? Same for two words that mean "connected." You are verbunden mit something, but gebunden an something.
What's up with the little girl?
The word for "girl" in German is "das Mädchen." Yes, it is neuter and in theory you would have to refer to a girl by "it." Most people nowadays however refer to girls as "she" even if they still say "das Mädchen."
So what the hell is up with das Mädchen? Well, this happens when you are obsessed with rules and have no exceptions for them. The suffix "-chen" makes a word "smaller", but also gives the noun a neuter gender.
The word "Mädchen" is derived from the feminine word "die Magd", which means "maid" or "handmaid" or something. No one uses that word anymore. A little "Magd" is made smaller by adding "-chen" to the end of the word, thus getting "Mädchen."
I know what you are thinking. You are thinking two things:
1. Wow that is weird, but at least it makes sense! The German language is not sexist or anything.. Umm maybe, maybe not, because I have not been able to find an explanation for the word "das Weib". This word is related to the English "wife", but in German it is a derogatory word for women, kind of like gymcels calling women "females" in English. At least the plural is logical and it becomes "die Weiber"...
2. Ngl, they should just use another word and give it the feminine gender. They do. They use the English word "girl"... yaaay. Now the world makes sense! Nope. They still say "das Girl." Yep... I don't get it either, but don't think too much and speak more! That is my new motto for language learning.
Anyway, that is it for today. Auf Wiedersehen!
