> >feminine. For example, a pen is of masculine gender and an eraser belongs
> >to
> >feminine gender! There is no logic; you merely have to memorise the gender
> >for each object.
> >
> I commented on this to my German teacher, and she told me that for
> someone who grows up speaking German, forgetting that Misthaufen is
> masculine and requires a "der", "ein", "den", "dem", etc., would be akin
> to an American forgetting that McDonald's begins with "Mc".  When they

Yes. This is true, but for those of us who learned German as a second
language, it comes slowly. Though there are *some* general rules. The
main one is that adult woman are feminine, adult males are masculine,
and young (unmarried) women are neuter.

Mark Twain said it best:

  Where is the radish?
  She is in the kitchen.

  Where is the beautiful and accomplished English madaine?
  It has gone to the opera.

> It's only really an issue for those of us coming from a gender-lacking
> language.

There are actually fewer gender-lacking languages than one thinks. Even
English has some remnents of this (boats are feminine).

Japanese may not have specific gramatical gender, but men and women speak
differently enough that when reading you can tell if a man or a woman is
talking.
--
D. Jay Newman           !
jay@sprucegrove.com     ! Xander: Giles, don't make cave-slayer unhappy.
http://enerd.ws/robots/ !

--
http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us!
email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body