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Language/German/Grammar/Gender

2019-04-13T13:33:01Z

Effemie: incomplete, poor explanation of the topic

In German nouns are either masculine (male), feminine (female) or neuter (things/entities without a natural gender like book, sun or moon). The grammatical gender is not always identical with the natural gender of a noun in German. Be carful: the grammatical gender of a noun in your native language can be different from the grammatical gender of the noun in German.

<u>For example:</u>

''das Mädchen neuter - girl''

Girls are female, the natural gender of a girl is female, but the grammatical gender of "Mädchen" in German is neuter.

''die Sonne in German is feminine - the sun in English is masculine''

''der Mond in German is masculine - the moon in English is feminine''

Why is it so important to know the grammatical gender of a noun in German? In German you often have to use an article with the noun. The articles for the three types of gender and the different cases are not the same. To use the correct article you have to know the grammatical gender.

Example for definite (''der, die, das'') and indefinite (''ein, eine'') articles in German:

'''Singular''' (man - ''Mann'', woman - ''Frau'', girl - ''Mädchen'')
{| class="wikitable"
!Case
!masculine
!feminine
!neuter
|-
|Nominativ
|der / ein Mann
|die / eine Frau
|das / ein Mädchen
|-
|Genitiv
|des / eines Mannes
|der / einer Frau
|des / eines Mädchens
|-
|Dativ
|dem / einem Mann
|der / einer Frau
|dem / einem Mädchen
|-
|Akkusativ
|den / einen Mann
|die / eine Frau
|das /ein Mädchen
|}

Pronouns that replace nouns are different for gender and cases, too. So you have to know the grammatical gender to use the correct pronoun in German sentences.

Example:

The man is talking to his child. He wears a black shirt.

'''''Der Mann''' spricht mit '''seinem''' Kind. '''Er''' trägt ein schwarzes Shirt.''

For nouns that describe a profession you are able to "transform" the grammatical gender from masculine to feminine in German. Similar to the transformation of the noun ''actor'' as the expression for a male actor to the noun ''actress'' as the expression for a female actor in English.

der Schauspieler (actor) -> die Schauspieler'''in''' (actress)

der Doktor (doctor) -> die Doktor'''in'''

der Fahrer (driver) -> die Fahrer'''in'''

<nowiki>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</nowiki>

In this lesson, we learn the "Gender" subject in Deutsch. Follow the lesson.

When you talk about a female, say "eine" instead "ein" ( ein/eine = a/an).

eine => female

ein => male

Example: Ich bin eine Lehrerin.

Look at the sentence again, we say "Lehrerin" instead "Lehrer". Yes! When we talk about a female, we should add one "in" at the end of the sentence.

Example :

Ich bin eine Busfahrerin (Busfahrer)

Ich bin eine Ingenieurin (Ingenieur)

___________

Note: all German names, have gender :| (I mean these words also have gender : bravery, sunset and ...)

In Deutsch we have 3 types of verbs in the third person.

Sie (She) => Female

Er (He) => Male

Es (Neutral) => Things

Example :

Sie ist eine Forografin (She is a Photographer)

Er ist ein Fotograf (He is a Photographer)

Note: Don't worry for "es"

Note: all German names, have gender :| (I mean also this words have gender : bravery, sunset and ...)

Der (The) => Male

Die (The) => Female

Das (The) => Neutral

See that :

die Jahreszeiten (the seasons) => Gender : Female

der weg (the way) => Gender : Male

Good luck.

Language/German/Vocabulary/Language

2019-04-13T12:31:17Z

Effemie: The examples in German weren't grammatically correct. Wrong word order. A comma was missing.

'''Languages - Sprachen'''
* German - Deutsch
* English - Englisch
* French - Französisch
* Spanish - Spanisch
* Italian - Italienisch
* Portugese - Portugiesisch
* Polish - Polnisch
* Russian - Russisch
* Norwegian - Norwegisch
* Swedish - Schwedisch
* Finnish - Finnisch
* Danish - Dänisch
* Turkish - Türkisch
* Croatian - Kroatisch
* Serbian - Serbisch
* Albanian - Albanisch
* Greek - Griechisch
* Japanese - Japanisch
* Chinese - Chinesisch
* Mandarin - Mandarin
* Tamil - Tamilisch
* Thai - Thai
* Indonesian - Indonesisch
* Hindi - Hindi

'''Examples - Beispiele'''

I speak German. - Ich spreche Deutsch.

I just began learning English. - Ich habe erst begonnen, Englisch zu lernen.

I have been studying French for five years. - Ich lerne seit fünf Jahren Französisch.

I have been studying Spanish since I was nine years old. - Ich lerne Spanisch, seit ich neun Jahre alt bin.

Mandarin is the language, which is spoken by most people in the world. - Mandarin ist die Sprache, welche weltweit von den meisten Leuten gesprochen wird.

Language/German/Grammar/Be-Polite

2019-04-12T14:37:20Z

Effemie: spelling: "...a person you are close too" -> "a person you are close to"

[[File:german-lesson-du-or-sei.jpg|300px]]

Well, I guess every foreigner has heard about that famous German formal version of 'you'.

The informal translation is '<nowiki/>'''du'''', which is used when you're talking to family members, friends, basically people you're close to or when you talk to other adolescents or children.

When you're talking to an authority person, like adults, officers and teachers, you must say '<nowiki/>'''sie''''.

So when you're talking to your classmate you say 'Kannst du mir helfen?' (Can you help me?) and when you're talking to your teacher you say 'Können sie mir helfen?'. Both has the same translation.

When you can't say for sure if the person you're talking to is the same age as you are or maybe already over 18, you should better say 'sie' because if the person really is older than 18 he or she would feel offended.

Another point is writing formal letters and e-mails.

The formal 'you' is written 'Sie' and the informal 'you' can be written 'du' but also 'Du'.

The same goes for the formal way of 'Ihre' (your), 'Ihr' (your) 'Ihnen' (you) and 'Ihren' (your).

==Authors==
[http://polyglotclub.com/member/primavera16 Primavera16]