German related question

n3rd · Post by **n3rd** » 03 Nov 2009, 14:48

For the Germans, among us.

How can I distinguish a word weither it is male or female?

leetnigga · Post by **leetnigga** » 03 Nov 2009, 17:46

I ain't no German, but I hope that doesn't disqualify me from answering.

The best way to know the gender of a German noun is to learn it along with the word.

You can use some hints to predict them though:

http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa042098.htm
http://german.about.com/cs/vocabulary/a/nsuffix.htm

bozotheclown138 · Post by **bozotheclown138** » 03 Nov 2009, 18:24

im in german 2! haha but im not very good i think if it ends in an e or ie usually its die or something. and ihr is for girls and thats all i can say about this haha

Post by **bad_brain** » 03 Nov 2009, 18:49

well, I am a german, but I have to say: "I have not the slightest clue"..

actually I don't think there is something like a rule, it really depends on every single word, as leet said, you best learn it together with every new word.
but I think I can say there is something like a rhythm in german (even if everyone that hears german will most likely not believe it

).
let's take the word "Haus" which has no gender, so "das" is used.
say "das Haus" and then try it with "die Haus" (wrong) or "der Haus" (wrong), in my opinion only "das Haus" has a flow, while the others have a break in the flow. I just tried it with different words and for me there is always a flow when the gender is right, but of course this can also be caused by the fact that it simply sounds "wrong" for me when the wrong gender is used.

bozotheclown138 · Post by **bozotheclown138** » 03 Nov 2009, 19:34

haha i try that too b_b but i dont do the best on my tests

haha

IceDane · Post by **IceDane** » 03 Nov 2009, 20:41

I'm not German, but I am Icelandic and have taken a bit of German. German and Icelandic have somewhat similar language semantics - they do at least both have genders for every word out there.

I know this much; similar to Icelandic, there is nothing in German that tells you whether a word is one gender or the other. The article might, but not all forms or uses of the word will show the article.