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Fawkes@lemmy.zip

What is the least enjoyed/most frustrating aspect of learning your target language? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by Fawkes@lemmy.zip to c/LanguageLearning@lemmy.zip

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As an English speaker learning German, I face endless confusion and frustration with many of the short question words that are "False Friends"

Such as:

Wer (where) - Actually means who.

Wo (Who) - Actually means where.

Wie (We) - Actually means how.

Was (was) - Actually means what.

Also (also) - Actually means so.

Will (will) - Actually means to want.

And the completely arbitrary gender assignments!

For example.

The year is: Das Jahr, a neuter word.

The month is: Der Monat, a masculine word.

And the week is: Die Woche, a feminine word.

And then there's directly counter-intuitive examples of words that seem like they Should be a gender other than what they are, such as:

The little girl - Das Mädchen (Neuter, not feminine)

Breasts - Der Busen (Masculine! Boobs is masculine!)

Person - Die Person (Feminine! Why isn't this word neuter?!"

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[–] DeuxChevaux@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

And you have to relearn the whole genders, if you start learning romance languages.

German, french, Italian:

Die Sonne (f), le soleil, il sole (m).

der Mond (m), la lune, la luna (f).

And lots more like that.

[–] Eq0@literature.cafe 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yep. I know German quite well, but French and Italian better. My brain just picks a random gender every time. Usually not even consistent

[–] Fawkes@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago

That seems like the best option imo. Just decide on the spot which gender you want the word to be and go with it! I really don't think it matters if my refrigerator is a man or woman lol.

[–] Tagger@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

I had this question. I'm learning Welsh from English. So learning a language with genders from one without. Then met some who learnt Welsh from German. Two gendered languages. Which do you think is harder - having to learn about genders and try to incorporate a new concept or having. to learn genders for words that may or may not match your 'expectations' and 'logic' from your L1

[–] stray@pawb.social 1 points 2 weeks ago

I personally don't think of them as genders and instead go by what feels right for the individual word. Swedish technically has two grammatical genders, but no one thinks of them that way; there are just en-words and ett-words. So for me "el mar" and "la mer" aren't confusing because the "the" is part of the word, and the word sounds wrong if you change it.