Dead Horse Interchange

https://youtu.be/FpiV6ldAhjA?t=1211
https://youtu.be/FpiV6ldAhjA?t=1492

before neoliberalism


after neoliberalism
https://youtu.be/0bwLuRhMptg?t=78

Kugelfisch wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 14, 2022 12:10 pm

The same with French. When I had French in school, I found that aspect easy, despite the genders of things being completely different and just as random. You just develop a feel for it.

I suppose that's harder if it's not a concept one grew up with.

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I've just recently started learning German for real, but I took several years of Spanish when I was much younger, so the underlying concept doesn't feel strange to me at all. It does feel a bit awkward for feminine articles to play double-duty as plurals, if I'm embarrassingly honest. Is that why "Mädchen" is a neuter noun, by the way? That happens to be a word that doesn't itself change by quantity, thus "die Mädchen" reads as plural, thus the singular had to get something else?

It's always "die" in plural. That Mädchen doesn't happen to have a plural version is coincidence and not unusual. Eis, Pizza, Bier, Spargel and so on all don't have a plural version.

So it's not just feminine articles that sometimes don't have a plural.

I think you misread me. I was wondering about the fact that "Mädchen" is neuter, not feminine, despite meaning "girl." If it were feminine, of course, both the singular and plural would be "die Mädchen," so I wonder if it's neuter for the sake of differentiating those. I'm probably just overthinking it, though.

Oh. If there is a reason, nobody knows. As I said, there's no rhyme or reason to it. Neither is there in French, to my knowledge.

As a native speaker, I have never thought about the "gender" of an article in the literal sense. It's not helpful to think in that way at all, because it's random.

Yeah, I usually don't either. Most things don't actually have literal gender, as you say. That one specific case of it just stood out to me bit, since... well, it does.

Dingus Bajingus wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 14, 2022 11:16 pm

It does feel a bit awkward for feminine articles to play double-duty as plurals, if I'm embarrassingly honest. Is that why "Mädchen" is a neuter noun, by the way?

Nah, that's just systemic misogyny.

(Or it seems to be a common theme with the "-chen" suffix, which is usually applied to make something sound more cutesy. There's not really a "base" version of Mädchen, though)

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I've just recently started learning German for real

Looking forward to talking with you like a real man of culture.

Kugelfisch wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 14, 2022 11:25 pm

Eis, Pizza, Bier, Spargel and so on all don't have a plural version.

Pizzen and Biere would beg to differ.

VoiceOfReasonPast wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 15, 2022 5:57 am

Kugelfisch wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 14, 2022 11:25 pm

Eis, Pizza, Bier, Spargel and so on all don't have a plural version.

Pizzen and Biere would be to differ.

Well-known idiot identifiers. Don't teach him the German equivalent to "would of".

It's even worse. According to the Duden you can use both Pizzas and Pizzen.

I know. It's a concession to retards. Biere is the worst offender. I'd immediately stop talking to anyone using it.

Oh wait, Pizzen is alright. My bad. I was thinking of Pizzas as the example of retard spelling.

Biere is an abomination, though.