![]() ![]() German takes things to a whole new level! conventional der die das chart In English, we still use gendered pronouns (e.g. To us, it just seems so, well, foreign to think of even objects having gender. And, again, most people & animals do have intuitive genders … But how we go about learning the genders of table, door, pillow, etc.? The der die das chart These examples are pretty straightforward. Notice how der, die, das indicate gender in German, but in English it’s simply ‘the’ each time: ![]() In German, the noun’s assigned gender is ‘flagged’ by the words that come in front of it … for example, by … der, die, das!ĭer indicates that the following noun is masculine. So, don’t expect that you can somehow reason through German noun gender like I don’t know, “fork” just seems like it’d be neuter… ← □ That line of thinking will get you in trouble! Signalling noun gender both woman & cow are female, and man & bull are male, etc.). Regardless what the noun is, its gender doesn’t mean anything about the noun itself (only exception: most of the time, people & animals have the genders that are intuitive, e.g. It doesn’t mean that things used by both men & women are neuter (e.g. It doesn’t mean that tools, trucks, and bugs are masculine but dolls, lipstick, and dresses are feminine. It’s not that soft, pretty things are feminine and strong, sturdy things are masculine, etc. German also has masculine & feminine nouns, but it has a third gender, too: neuter - the genderless gender! What is assigned noun gender?Įxactly this: there are no inherent qualities of the noun that make it ‘male’, ‘female’, or ‘neuter’. We can’t relate the concept of noun gender to English, but if you took high school Spanish or French, you came across gendered nouns there: el (masculine) and la (feminine) in Spanish, and le (masculine) and la (feminine) in French. Why does German make the distinction between der, die, das?īecause all (let me repeat that: ALL) German nouns have an assigned gender. So, if you don’t care about speaking German well, then go ahead and forget about der die das.īut if you want native German speakers to enjoy interacting with you (without either correcting you constantly or at least inwardly gritting their teeth in pain as you butcher their language), then I would suggest getting a handle on der die das, which is partially about noun gender. Knowing how to make these changes is vital to speaking German well …Īnd knowing whether a given noun is a masculine ( der), feminine ( die), or neuter ( das) noun is one of the factors that influences those slight grammar changes! It’s essential.Īs you continue learning German, you will discover that a heckuva lot of words take on slight grammar changes (for which we have no equivalents in English). It would be convenient if learning der die das were just some optional extra bonus thing with German. □ Why does knowing der die das even matter? So, why is der die das so important? Let’s talk about that first. ![]() So, if you want to understand the differences between der die das and learn when & how to use them correctly, you need to learn about noun gender!Īnd when I say need to learn about noun gender, I mean NEED! der die das & noun genderĪs mentioned above, der die das are simply 3 ways of saying ‘the’ in German dependent on the gender of the noun. ![]() tips for correctly using der die das in a sentence.shortcuts for memorizing nouns with der die das.tricks that simplify the concept of der die das. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |