Why are girls neuter in German but turnips are female? I don’t know. In fact, the word Mädchen (girl) takes the neuter article “das” while the word Rübe (turnip) takes the feminine one. While that would make a ton of sense, the assignment of articles in German is much more random. “Okay, so does that mean men take a masculine article, women take a feminine article, and “things” take a neuter one?” This is different from our English concept of biological sex/gender. In German, every noun has a gender: der (male), die (female), and neuter (das). If English is your first language, you might not be familiar with the concept of noun genders. Learning German Noun Genders (der, die, das)
#FREE GERMAN GRAMMAR HOW TO#
One is washed about in it, hither and thither, in the most helpless way and when at last he thinks he has captured a rule which offers firm ground to take a rest on amid the general rage and turmoil of the ten parts of speech, he turns over the page and reads, "Let the pupil make careful note of the following exceptions." He runs his eye down and finds that there are more exceptions to the rule than instances of it.” - Mark TwainĬonfused by the ever changing plural endings? Read How to Learn German Noun Plurals. “Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp. For your enjoyment, Mark Twain quotes will be sprinkled throughout. In the following paragraphs, I will attempt to provide you with some resources to assist you in your study of this incredibly challenging yet rewarding language. Mark Twain once wrote an essay titled “The Awful German Language” in which he expressed his frustration with the difficulty of learning German. What the heck are all of these things!? German grammar seems incredibly complicated, especially when you are at the beginning of your language learning journey, but it actually operates quite logically once you have a better grasp of the language.
Many of these grammatical structures are affected by noun genders, which you can learn about and practice here! German Noun Library | German Noun Genders
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