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Fawkes@lemmy.zip

What is the least enjoyed/most frustrating aspect of learning your target language? (lemmy.zip)

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

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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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[–] Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 months ago

The recommended way for remembering words' genders is to always attach an adjective in front of a word when learning it.

Do not try to learn "die Nacht".
Learn "stille Nacht", which means "a quiet night".
The -e in the word "stille" is there because the word is feminine. When you learn "stille Nacht", you can automatically recognize it must be "die Nacht".
Similarly: "Blödes Auto" means "Stupid car". the ending -es means it's das Auto.
And "Blöder Mann" means "stupid man". -er, because it's der Mann.

Same works in other languages as well. Buen viño = Good wine. Therefore: El viño. Persona rapida = A fast person. -a means it's la persona.

Because a native speaker of German often hears adjectives in combination with words when they learn them, they automatically constantly receive the necessary information on the words' genders.