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submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by Fawkes@lemmy.zip to c/LanguageLearning@lemmy.zip

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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[–] Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I guess in speech we tend to say something like 'eight thirty" rather than "twenty thirty" but certainly in witten communication its always 24 hour.

[–] Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 months ago

This is how it works in German as well. 16 o'clock is called "um 4" in a typical conversational situation.