![]() ![]() Here are tips for remembering which nouns are in which category. ![]() That third category, neuter, can feel perplexing if you're used to a system like Spanish or French, which just has masculine and feminine, but the neuter category works just the same as the others-it's a group of nouns that behave the same way in the language's grammar, and humans, regrettably, gave it a name that understandably makes learners think it's more than just a third category! Zulu has 19! German, Russian, and Latin all have three categories, and for convenience, the categories have been given names: masculine, feminine, and neuter. In many languages, noun endings form two categories, but languages can have many more than two categories. What does it mean that some German nouns are "neuter"? While it's true that thinking about human gender and masculinity and femininity won't help you, in German many types of nouns (like all the words for the months, or most of the names of chemical elements) will be in the same gender category.Īnd, as you now know, German's three non-human gender categories are called masculine, feminine, and neuter. Instead, German learners can use a combination of word endings and the type of word to learn the gender of a noun. You won't be able to guess which category a noun is in based on whether some aspect of the word reminds you of men or women, or masculinity and femininity, or anything like that. When learning German-or any language with grammatical gender!-remember that grammatical gender categories aren't based on human gender. Ok, here we go! □□ Grammatical gender: a refresher This week we'll get through the first layer of German nouns, so that you know what gender a noun is, and we'll cover German cases another time. In fact, there are only EIGHT different forms-because some of the articles are used for multiple genders and multiple cases. If you've never studied German, you might be thinking, "Whoa, three genders… times four cases… that's 12 different articles!!" That means German is packing a ton of information into these tiny words: Articles indicate which grammatical gender category a noun is in, and which case the noun is in, in a particular sentence. Unlike other languages, German shows a noun's case not on the noun itself, but on words associated with the noun-adjectives and articles! The four cases in German are nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive. German also uses a system of cases to indicate what a noun is doing in the sentence (is it the thing doing the action of the verb? Or is the thing being acted upon? Or something else?). They could just as easily be called Category A, Category B, and Category C! In German, a noun's category affects the words around it, including adjectives and articles (words like the and a), so a masculine noun is paired with a masculine article, feminine with feminine, and neuter with neuter. These categories are unrelated to human gender, sexuality, or identity and are purely grammatical. German nouns-for humans and objects-are all in one of three noun categories: masculine, feminine, or neuter. These topics have been covered a bit in other posts, but here are the basics for German: There's actually two layers to these German articles (words like the and a): They vary according to grammatical gender and also by case, sometimes called declensions. That's only part of the story when it comes to German, though… You’ve got it, Das It Ever End: German has three grammatical gender categories! That der (the) goes with masculine nouns, die (also means "the") with feminine, and das (.the) is for neuter nouns. I'm at the beginning of learning German, and I wonder if you could help me figure out the word "the." I understand that they have male form "der" and female form "die" but I got another one that's tripping me up and that's "das." It seems like that's another form! Can you help me out? Kristina Schoen, a Duolingo curriculum designer who is responsible for our German course for English speakers! She's bringing her expertise as a German speaker and teacher to answer one of the most common questions we get in the Dear Duolingo inbox, one that plagues German learners, is of interest to English language history buffs, and should instill feelings of relief (.even Schadenfreude?) in all other learners. Hey, y'all! This week I've teamed up with Dr. Welcome to another week of Dear Duolingo, an advice column just for language learners. ![]()
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