this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2025
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Language Learning

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I hope language learning memes are okay (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 months ago by Lazycog@sopuli.xyz to c/languagelearning@sopuli.xyz
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25565846

WHY

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[–] Z4XC@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I assume a washing machine is female in that case.

[–] zaphod@sopuli.xyz 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

All machines are. I'd say it's at least 90% completely arbitrary, what makes streets, tables, power, or cars feminine? What makes some countries feminine and some masculine? The only thing you could believably argue that it's historic sexism is job titles, because most of them are masculine with derived feminine words.

[–] loaExMachina@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I believe you're wrong to assume the gender is a property of the thing the word refers too, it's a property of the word itself. Synonyms can have different genders, like "vélo" is masculine and "bicylette" is feminine, both mean "bicycle". "Vagin" is masculine. There's no 100% consistent mean to determine a words gender, but helpful patterns that are right most of the time would be more in the word's ending.

To take the example of "machine", I can't think of any word ending in "-ine" that isn't feminine, safe for some Russian names.

Also, if a noun doesn't end in "-e", it's most likely masculine. But the reciprocal isn't true!

[–] TheYojimbo@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

What ? All machines are female?

Une machine à laver ok, but un lave linge, un lave vaisselle, un sèche linge, un robot de cuisine, un four...

Hell I can think of more "males" than "females" machines.

[–] themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

All "machine à [...]" are female.

[–] TheYojimbo@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Yes because the word machine is female.

[–] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 4 points 2 months ago

robot de cuisine

I don't speak French but I may integrate this into my daily vocabulary.