Haha. Yeah, you just know. Though sometimes with originally English words, people use different gender pronouns... Like blog, don't even know what dictionaries say, but some people say "das Blog" (eww) and others "der Blog" (yes) - and hearing the one you don't use yourself annoys everyone XD; - Kerstin
G totally agrees! (he tried to reply on his phone but it didn't work) I'd also looked up "Bommel" and it also gave me die/der Bommel, but G said die is eww and der is good. He agrees with you on "Blog" as well. I guess they may be regional differences...but yes. And then someone told me that "Monat" is sometimes "das Monat" in Austria?! Way to make learning German hard for me...waah!
Yeah, I don't know how Germans just know. Amazing. In Portuguese, at least it's easier because you have the "A" and "O" endings to give you a hint of the word gender.
Yeah, it's hard to wrap my head around it, considering Japanese doesn't have any articles and English is..well, English. And none of the French articles I painstakingly learned over the years help because they're all different in German. (typical) meh. I mostly just mumble and try to get away with it.
off the top of my head: Tag, Weg, Krieg, Schlag, Trog, Sarg: all masculine. see the pattern? there are some exceptions (Zeug comes to mind), but that's how G knows. the people who prefer "das Blog" take over the gender from the long form We(b-Log)buch. similar to preferring "der E-mail" over "die E-mail" (because of "der Brief") - eww! problem with german is: yes there are rules, but which one do you have to apply? sometimes the gender is decided by... what group the object belongs to. colours all have the same gender... or beverages, with a few prominent exceptions. fun! just like counting in japanese.
Whaaat, the -g pattern is something I've never thought about!! I had a German teacher who tried to show us how most one-syllable nouns are either der or das (approx. 60%). That sometimes helps me (esp in Dativ because it's the same anyway) but yes...so many exceptions! And YES, whoever invented counting in Japanese is also sadistic (toward non-native speakers). There's a great comic called 日本人の知らない日本語 which your girlfriend may or may not know (written by a Japanese language teacher who teaches foreign students in Japan) which has a great little anecdote about the Japanese counting system. If you haven't seen it already, I can highly recommend it! (it's in Japanese though)
I have watched the dorama of nihonjin no shiranai nihongo with English subtitles (you can find it anywhere on the internet) and that episode was fun. It gave me a new perspective on my Japanese learning. I was like "thank god I'm not stupid, they can't get it either!"
Whoa, hello, I was the one who was totally behind on things. There's a DORAMA? Holy smokes! I also just found out they're making (or have made) a dorama out of my favourite manga "Saint Young Men" (Saint Onisan)...I kind of have mixed feelings about watching the dorama-fied version of these two, but I'm pretty curious!
thanks, both of you! tracked down the dorama, must watch this! also i realize i totally skipped the original question about how G knows about the gender of tweet! the situation might not be so clear here but a) i'm sure he's heard it "gendered" before (i.e. he didn't have to make a native speaker's competent guess) and b) masculine would parallel the gender of the german translation ("der Zwitscher"). so, about your teacher's 60% rule: if it was dative, you'd go for *not feminine*, but if it was nominative/accusative, you'd go for *feminine* (because then that would be the best bet?) へええ～...
Haha. Yeah, you just know.
ReplyDeleteThough sometimes with originally English words, people use different gender pronouns... Like blog, don't even know what dictionaries say, but some people say "das Blog" (eww) and others "der Blog" (yes) - and hearing the one you don't use yourself annoys everyone XD;
- Kerstin
G totally agrees! (he tried to reply on his phone but it didn't work) I'd also looked up "Bommel" and it also gave me die/der Bommel, but G said die is eww and der is good. He agrees with you on "Blog" as well. I guess they may be regional differences...but yes. And then someone told me that "Monat" is sometimes "das Monat" in Austria?! Way to make learning German hard for me...waah!
DeleteYeah, I don't know how Germans just know. Amazing. In Portuguese, at least it's easier because you have the "A" and "O" endings to give you a hint of the word gender.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's hard to wrap my head around it, considering Japanese doesn't have any articles and English is..well, English. And none of the French articles I painstakingly learned over the years help because they're all different in German. (typical) meh. I mostly just mumble and try to get away with it.
Deleteoff the top of my head: Tag, Weg, Krieg, Schlag, Trog, Sarg: all masculine. see the pattern? there are some exceptions (Zeug comes to mind), but that's how G knows. the people who prefer "das Blog" take over the gender from the long form We(b-Log)buch. similar to preferring "der E-mail" over "die E-mail" (because of "der Brief") - eww!
ReplyDeleteproblem with german is: yes there are rules, but which one do you have to apply? sometimes the gender is decided by... what group the object belongs to. colours all have the same gender... or beverages, with a few prominent exceptions.
fun! just like counting in japanese.
Whaaat, the -g pattern is something I've never thought about!! I had a German teacher who tried to show us how most one-syllable nouns are either der or das (approx. 60%). That sometimes helps me (esp in Dativ because it's the same anyway) but yes...so many exceptions!
DeleteAnd YES, whoever invented counting in Japanese is also sadistic (toward non-native speakers). There's a great comic called 日本人の知らない日本語 which your girlfriend may or may not know (written by a Japanese language teacher who teaches foreign students in Japan) which has a great little anecdote about the Japanese counting system. If you haven't seen it already, I can highly recommend it! (it's in Japanese though)
I have watched the dorama of nihonjin no shiranai nihongo with English subtitles (you can find it anywhere on the internet) and that episode was fun. It gave me a new perspective on my Japanese learning. I was like "thank god I'm not stupid, they can't get it either!"
DeleteWhoa, hello, I was the one who was totally behind on things. There's a DORAMA? Holy smokes! I also just found out they're making (or have made) a dorama out of my favourite manga "Saint Young Men" (Saint Onisan)...I kind of have mixed feelings about watching the dorama-fied version of these two, but I'm pretty curious!
Deletethanks, both of you! tracked down the dorama, must watch this!
Deletealso i realize i totally skipped the original question about how G knows about the gender of tweet! the situation might not be so clear here but a) i'm sure he's heard it "gendered" before (i.e. he didn't have to make a native speaker's competent guess) and b) masculine would parallel the gender of the german translation ("der Zwitscher").
so, about your teacher's 60% rule: if it was dative, you'd go for *not feminine*, but if it was nominative/accusative, you'd go for *feminine* (because then that would be the best bet?) へええ～...