[SOLVED] Do people often make mistakes with gender of nouns?

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<a href="/it/translator/kwamegh" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1402305">kwameGH <div class="author_icon" title="Page author" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 13.11.2018
Pending moderation

I live in an English-speaking country and I've never been to a Francophone country. I only get into French mode when at LT and when watching videos, studying French, etc.
My question is, do native French speakers sometimes have a hard time getting the gender of a noun right?
For example I just heard 'le' conscience instead of 'la'.

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<a href="/it/translator/don-juan" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1110108">Don Juan <div class="moderator_icon" title="Moderator" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 05.04.2012

Gender is a confusing system for non-native or non-fluent speakers. I'm studying it for my specialization degree (which is on Romance philology and why Romance languages currently don't have the neutral). Not to mention that there are discrepancies in this very language family: 'água' is feminine in Portuguese and Italian, for instance, but it's masculine in Spanish. And that's one of the reasons I don't usually translate into sisters of Portuguese.

From what I read, the attribution of gender is somewhat confusing and has no actual grounds to happen. It's just rational or logical...

If I were to change it, I'd propose a very simpler system. Like: nouns used for animate things have a gender, inanimate beings have another one. I guess it would be simpler and avoid confusion.

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<a href="/it/translator/natur-provence" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1289099">Natur Provence </a>
Iscritto dal: 24.04.2016

In the german language as in Latin there are three genders der (ein), die (eine) das (ein), I agree with Aiona that will be learned by heart by learning the "mother language". There are regulary no mistakes. But it kann happen by foreign influences that in some region one uses in slang verbal communication a gender from the foreign language (example in the south-west by french influence der Butter (le beurre) instead of die Butter)

Moderatore Rosa
<a href="/it/translator/roster-31" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1158631">roster 31 <div class="moderator_icon" title="Модератор" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 15.02.2013
Alma Barroca a scris:

Gender is a confusing system for non-native or non-fluent speakers. I'm studying it for my specialization degree (which is on Romance philology and why Romance languages currently don't have the neutral). Not to mention that there are discrepancies in this very language family: 'água' is feminine in Portuguese and Italian, for instance, but it's masculine in Spanish. And that's one of the reasons I don't usually translate into sisters of Portuguese.

From what I read, the attribution of gender is somewhat confusing and has no actual grounds to happen. It's just rational or logical...

If I were to change it, I'd propose a very simpler system. Like: nouns used for animate things have a gender, inanimate beings have another one. I guess it would be simpler and avoid confusion.

Gracias, Juan, por tu comentario pero, déjame decirte que, en español, "agua" es femenino. En singular, lleva el artículo "el" porque "la" termina en "a", así como la palabra empieza con "a": "el agua" / "El agua clara", (mira el adjetivo). En plural sería, "las aguas".

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<a href="/it/translator/anerneq" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1112972">Anerneq <div class="editor_icon" title="Redacteur" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 10.05.2012

Many linguists (mainly those whose native language is English) seem to hate the concept of gender in languages. I heard every kind of crazy theory: some say it gives you a bias when talking about object, so that a key, la clé, would be described as smooth, shiny and golden in contrast to a more "masculine" way that would describe a key as being strong and heavy, whilst others say it's just sexist and an unfair way of categorising the world. This is not linguistics, I'd rather call it linguistics-fiction.
For someone who grew up with a language that has a gender system, be it French, German, Russian or whatever, using the right gender for the right word is just automatic. Personally, when I'm learning a language, a gender system makes me more aware of what sounds right and what doesn't. People would instantly know, if you used the wrong gender, because it sounds off, but would never think about which gender they need to use, it's really automatic. Obviously, everyone makes mistakes, but that counts also for native speakers. Some words also might be quite ambiguous: maybe they have a feminine ending, but are masculine or may be feminine in their singular form and masculine in the plural.
Indo-europeans indeed had an animacy vs inanimacy gender system. The inanimate gender later became the neuter gender and the animate gender split into masculine and feminine. In the Romance languages, the neuter gender was lost (I can't recall, if Romanian still has it. Maybe someone can confirm it?): words that were feminine and masculine in Latin kept their gender in the Romance languages (for the most part), whilst the neuter gender developed independently in the various languages.
Gender does not mean sex. There are gender systems in the world that have nothing to do with sex. Many have an animacy vs inanimacy system, others have different categories for plants, animals, humans, objects, divinities, elements and honestly you could go on like that forever. Some scholars question the usefulness of such systems, but it actually gives you a good hint on how people see the world and how they think it needs to be categorised. A culture that is more human-oriented would obviously develop a sex-based gender system, for instance.

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<a href="/it/translator/geheiligt" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1087920">Geheiligt <div class="moderator_icon" title="مشرف" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 10.07.2011
Ainoa a scris:

From the things I remember having read about Proto-Indo-European (the mother languages of most European languages), I think it had a system based of animacy: nouns were divided into animate beings and inanimate things. That system evolved over time to become the three-gender system (masculine, feminine, neuter) of many Indo-European languages, such as Latin. Interesting, isn’t it?

You are right, it is pretty interesting, and reasonable at the same time. I learnt about it one week ago thanks to a French Youtuber (linguisticae for reference). By the way, if Japanese had gender system, I am undoubtedly sure it would use that system (verbs like 'aru' and 'iru', depending respectively if the subject is inanimate or not, make me think so).

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<a href="/it/translator/citl%C4%81licue" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1109697">citlālicue <div class="moderator_icon" title="Модератор" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 31.03.2012

Zapotec doesn't differentiate between genders, the word for "him" and for "her" are the same:

Him/her (person) = Laabe
Him/her (animal) Laame
Him/her (objects that are feminine or masculine like in Spanish ex: LA mesa, El telefono, LA silla, La calle, EL cuarto) = Laani
Him/her (a special term for the divine and the dead) = Laani'

Just some random information I wanted to share that I found interesting.

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<a href="/it/translator/preslynn" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1396263">Preslynn </a>
Iscritto dal: 17.09.2018

In German, it can be nightmarish if you go beyond more common, native nouns. Even for native speakers. There seem to be those words, particularly loan words, where two genders if not all three genders are acceptable, but one is preferred. This is not a case of the meaning changing when the gender does, such as say with the French le livre (book) and la livre (pound). If you look up app, you seriously get "die, auch das, selten der". I've been saying "das" and think that the preferred from, which they list first, sounds odd. Yet other people prefer another and technically, none of them are wrong. Though that doesn't stop people having a big fight about it. There are sites for native Germans devoted to telling them which gender is preferable, and which is merely acceptable, for certain nouns.

I found a surprising number of words where I've been using the non preferred form (which is sometimes even listed as being rare...and I still do this because it's too ingrained and since it's not incorrect, I cannot be bothered to force myself to say "Das Hotdog") my whole life and thought that it was the correct one. And it took me 25 years to even figure out that this was even a thing. I just learned about it because I got in the middle of one of those "is it das, der or die app" fights and looked it up.

I'm also having trouble with French loan words. With the native words, you just accept that there is little logic to it. They have been this way for hundreds of years. But loan words entered the language at a point where we had some control over assigning a logical gender. So it can be very irritating when une interview is feminine, even though the original French word for this is masculine and interview doesn't have what would be considered a predominantly feminine ending in French. It just makes no sense! And "Der Lunch" drives me crazy because English nouns don't have genders and Mittagessen, which means lunch, is neuter in German so my head keeps telling me that it should be neuter.

In short, loan words are just the worst.

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<a href="/it/translator/sailor-pokemoon2" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1399679">Sailor PokeMoon2 </a>
Iscritto dal: 21.10.2018

In some cultures, it is considered rude to call something "it" even though it is a genderless object.

And that is EXACTLY why I struggle with the German language! Because I am female it can be VERY difficult to find the proper gender words for me! Ugh!

In some languages if something is already genderless (let's say a talking robot), it would be given a gender which would typically be based on it's looks or their "original" voice.

Banned User
<a href="/it/translator/igeethecat" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1365086">Igeethecat </a>
Iscritto dal: 16.12.2017

Don’t mess with Russians. We have 6 cases, on top of the gender thingy :)
And “it”can be offensive :D

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<a href="/it/translator/sailor-pokemoon2" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1399679">Sailor PokeMoon2 </a>
Iscritto dal: 21.10.2018

Sadly for me, in the part of the United States of America that I live in, Latino Spanish is becoming more and more common (don't get me wrong I'm happy to see that but for me mentally.... It just adds to the confusion) so as a result I have been trying to learn and understand Spanish a bit better. It can also be difficult to make an advertisement in Spanish (like a written advertisement) that could please both genders 😂

Very true I mean with the word "it"

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<a href="/it/translator/thomas222" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1310118">Thomas222 <div class="moderator_icon" title="Moderator" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 06.10.2016

This is actually a really interesting topic.

In Hebrew, for example, everything is either male or female. There is no "it" (or a third gender). We actually took the "it" from the Brits during the British Mandate period (1917-1948) since all of their documents needed to be translated and at the time, the Hebrew language was still being revived (and is still evolving to this day).

It's pretty funny, if someone is unsure whether something should be male or female, we just count it (One table; Two tables), and it just comes naturally. So if a foreigner or a Hebrew learner tries to speak it, they usually mix it up and we can tell they aren't native right away. Other than the accent, of course.

Some words can be either male or female, such as "knife (sakin | סכין)" or "face (panim | פנים)". Other words can be male in singular, and have a "feminine" ending when in plural, such as "window (khalon | חלון); windows (khalonot | חלונות)" or "curtain (vilon | וילון); curtains (vilonot | וילונות)". Or the opposite, where words can be female in singular and have a "masculine" ending when in plural, such as "ant (nemala | נמלה); ants (nemalim | נמלים)" or "word (mila | מילה); words (milim | מילים)".

Even numbers are a hassle! For males you say; "One (ekhad | אחד), two (shnayim | שניים), three (shlosha | שלושה), four (arba'ah | ארבעה), five (khamisha | חמישה)" and so on. For females you say; "One (akhat | אחת), two (shtayim | שתיים), three (shalosh | שלוש), four (arba | ארבע), five (khamesh | חמש)".

This was fun, I love teaching lol.

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<a href="/it/translator/sailor-pokemoon2" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1399679">Sailor PokeMoon2 </a>
Iscritto dal: 21.10.2018

I have recently learned that where I live some people are of one gender but they ask or want to be referred as the other gender. And for somebody who is what is called "transitioning" from one gender to the other calling them "an it" is EXTREMELY offensive! But they would be called "an it" because somebody was not sure what their gender was or what their gender is now. And yes I am talking about the English language. For me, the safest way around the problem of not being sure what someone's gender is, is by calling them or referring to them as "them" or "they" or some form like that. Sure it sounds plural and maybe even improper to some other people but it's better than walking up to them and saying "hi! I just met you! And this is crazy! But here's my number! So tell me your gender, maybe?"

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<a href="/it/translator/sailor-pokemoon2" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1399679">Sailor PokeMoon2 </a>
Iscritto dal: 21.10.2018

I noticed that too with the numbers I mean! I was in Sunday school class in church when I was younger, and the person in charge wanted to teach us some Hebrew starting with the numbers in Hebrew..... The teacher didn't make it past the number 3 because of the different gender or ways to say the number and all of the kids in the class were under the age of 10 at the time 😂😂

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<a href="/it/translator/sailor-pokemoon2" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1399679">Sailor PokeMoon2 </a>
Iscritto dal: 21.10.2018

Probably

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<a href="/it/translator/thomas222" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1310118">Thomas222 <div class="moderator_icon" title="Moderator" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 06.10.2016

That's what I do if I don't know someone's gender over the internet. Just refer to them as "they". If I really want to know, I just ask them :)

Guru At messing everything up
<a href="/it/translator/sailor-pokemoon2" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1399679">Sailor PokeMoon2 </a>
Iscritto dal: 21.10.2018

Me too!

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<a href="/it/translator/anerneq" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1112972">Anerneq <div class="editor_icon" title="Redacteur" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 10.05.2012
OpalMoon a scris:

And doesn't Finnish have somewhere in the area of fifteen cases?

15 cases and NO gender whatsoever. "Hän" is both "he" and "she".

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<a href="/it/translator/igeethecat" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1365086">Igeethecat </a>
Iscritto dal: 16.12.2017

I think they changed “coffee”’s gender In Russian. It is ok to call it it, I believe.
But I still prefer чёрный. :)

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<a href="/it/translator/citl%C4%81licue" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1109697">citlālicue <div class="moderator_icon" title="Модератор" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 31.03.2012

We do have a term for a third gender called a "muxe" and "biza'ah" in another. They use neither feminine or masculine pronouns, it's not even "they", I'm having a hard time describing it. It's like if there was another word besides "him", "her" where it's not plural like "they/them" but singular (but not "it"). Some more info on that here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender#Latin_America_and_the_Caribbean

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<a href="/it/translator/natur-provence" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1289099">Natur Provence </a>
Iscritto dal: 24.04.2016

"Along the same line, French possessive pronouns (or determinants) refer to the thing possessed and agree with its gender, while English ones refer to the sex of the possessor".(ingirumimusnocte)
Like English, so German. And I have some problems with the french kind of thinking.

Membro
<a href="/it/translator/preslynn" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1396263">Preslynn </a>
Iscritto dal: 17.09.2018
ingirumimusnocte a scris:

There is a distinction between masculine and feminine in plural, but for a collection of mixed-gender nouns you will use masculine. Feminine plural will only be used if all the nouns are feminine. This "masculine dominance" is viewed by some as male chauvinism ingrained in the language :)
.

I have to admit that at times, this does bother me. Like when you have a group of 99 women and one man and you're supposed to call them ils, because that one darn man overrides all those women.

I actually did come across the word pompière, so I guess some people took it upon themselves to create it already. I'm glad to hear that French people don't actually use weird nouns like "doctoresse" (which I was scolded for NOT using when referring to a female doctor once...must have been a zealot)

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<a href="/it/translator/don-juan" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1110108">Don Juan <div class="moderator_icon" title="Moderator" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 05.04.2012

Hola, Rosa, gracias por tu comentario.

See, I should get back on my Spanish studies soon. I had no classes of noun-gendering during my high school Spanish classes, so I didn't know that some words where 'el' is used are actually feminine. Live and learn, as they say ;)

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<a href="/it/translator/don-juan" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1110108">Don Juan <div class="moderator_icon" title="Moderator" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 05.04.2012

Just for you to understand how confusing this is. In Portuguese there are only two genders: masculine and feminine. Grammar (and primary teachers) say that words that end in 'o' are masculine and words that end in 'a' are feminine. But there are words that do not fit these two, like 'estante' (bookshelf), 'tênis' (tennis shoe), 'trem' (train) 'fênix' (phoenix). It's very confusing for a non-native to master all these rules and specifications, though native know it by heart, as Ainoa said. As I don't speak any non-Romance language, I don't know if it's hard in others, but I guess that in my language family the system is pretty much the same.

I read a grammar say that masculines are words before which you could add the article 'o', feminines being those before which you could add 'a'. It's simpler and less confusing but, still, not the best option, IMHO.

If you're interested, I can share my monography with you, but first I'd have to translate it as it's not in English. Or maybe, I could just list some info I've gathered all along.

Revisore
<a href="/it/translator/anerneq" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1112972">Anerneq <div class="editor_icon" title="Redacteur" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 10.05.2012
phantasmagoria a scris:

We do have a term for a third gender called a "muxe" and "biza'ah" in another. They use neither feminine or masculine pronouns, it's not even "they", I'm having a hard time describing it. It's like if there was another word besides "him", "her" where it's not plural like "they/them" but singular (but not "it"). Some more info on that here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender#Latin_America_and_the_Caribbean

I think this fits in the concept of "two-spirited" people present in much of the Amerindian cultures. I heard about it in the Inuit and Chukchi cultures where they are traditionally considered to be the most powerful of shamans.

Guru
<a href="/it/translator/natur-provence" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1289099">Natur Provence </a>
Iscritto dal: 24.04.2016
Alma Barroca a scris:

Just for you to understand how confusing this is. In Portuguese there are only two genders: masculine and feminine. Grammar (and primary teachers) say that words that end in 'o' are masculine and words that end in 'a' are feminine. But there are words that do not fit these two, like 'estante' (bookshelf), 'tênis' (tennis shoe), 'trem' (train) 'fênix' (phoenix). It's very confusing for a non-native to master all these rules and specifications, though native know it by heart, as Ainoa said. As I don't speak any non-Romance language, I don't know if it's hard in others, but I guess that in my language family the system is pretty much the same.

This is not a typical characteristic only for portuguese. I don't know any languague where one can be sure about the gender only be the ending of a noun.

Revisore
<a href="/it/translator/anerneq" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1112972">Anerneq <div class="editor_icon" title="Redacteur" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 10.05.2012
Alma Barroca a scris:

Just for you to understand how confusing this is. In Portuguese there are only two genders: masculine and feminine. Grammar (and primary teachers) say that words that end in 'o' are masculine and words that end in 'a' are feminine. But there are words that do not fit these two, like 'estante' (bookshelf), 'tênis' (tennis shoe), 'trem' (train) 'fênix' (phoenix). It's very confusing for a non-native to master all these rules and specifications, though native know it by heart, as Ainoa said. As I don't speak any non-Romance language, I don't know if it's hard in others, but I guess that in my language family the system is pretty much the same.

I guess it's simpler in Italian. Words that end in -o are masculine, words that end in -a are feminine, words that end in -e can take either one or the other gender, words ending in -i (of Greek origins and most are very specific terms) are always feminine. Obviously there are exceptions, but if you remember this, you can pretty much manage to get it right 80% of the times. The tricky part is figuring out the gender of loanwords: because no native noun end in a consonant, the Italian grammar pretty much doesn't know how to handle them. Most of the times they preserve the gender they had in their original language, but it gets trickier with languages that have no gender.

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<a href="/it/translator/annabellanna" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1240490">annabellanna </a>
Iscritto dal: 27.03.2015
Natur Provence a scris:
Alma Barroca a scris:

Just for you to understand how confusing this is. In Portuguese there are only two genders: masculine and feminine. Grammar (and primary teachers) say that words that end in 'o' are masculine and words that end in 'a' are feminine. But there are words that do not fit these two, like 'estante' (bookshelf), 'tênis' (tennis shoe), 'trem' (train) 'fênix' (phoenix). It's very confusing for a non-native to master all these rules and specifications, though native know it by heart, as Ainoa said. As I don't speak any non-Romance language, I don't know if it's hard in others, but I guess that in my language family the system is pretty much the same.

This is not a typical characteristic only for portuguese. I don't know any languague where one can be sure about the gender only be the ending of a noun.

The same in Italy.To give you an idea about such confusion could carry the habit of considering all what ends in "o/i" as male and what ends in "a/e" as feminine nouns: in the most popular speech in Italy, " la radio"( radio-set, s.f.) becomes "l'aradio"(s.m.);"le analisi" (the analysis, s,f) becomes "gli analisi", and so on...

Guru
<a href="/it/translator/natur-provence" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1289099">Natur Provence </a>
Iscritto dal: 24.04.2016

In Italian it is not simplier as you wrote but perhaps more regular with a rule -o = masculine and -a = femine. But words ending otherwise, you have to know it.

Moderatore Rosa
<a href="/it/translator/roster-31" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1158631">roster 31 <div class="moderator_icon" title="Модератор" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 15.02.2013
Alma Barroca a scris:

Hola, Rosa, gracias por tu comentario.

See, I should get back on my Spanish studies soon. I had no classes of noun-gendering during my high school Spanish classes, so I didn't know that some words where 'el' is used are actually feminine. Live and learn, as they say ;)

So they say, and we try to follow..

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<a href="/it/translator/icey" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1172336">Icey <div class="moderator_icon" title="Moderator" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 05.04.2013
Alma Barroca a scris:

I'm studying it for my specialization degree (which is on Romance philology and why Romance languages currently don't have the neutral).

So [@Alma Barroca], can you solve this doubt that's been haunting me for years? Why don't Romance languages have neutrum, when Latin did have it? I've been wondering for so long

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<a href="/it/translator/geheiligt" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1087920">Geheiligt <div class="moderator_icon" title="مشرف" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 10.07.2011
Icey a scris:
Alma Barroca a scris:

I'm studying it for my specialization degree (which is on Romance philology and why Romance languages currently don't have the neutral).

So [@Alma Barroca], can you solve this doubt that's been haunting me for years? Why don't Romance languages have neutrum, when Latin did have it? I've been wondering for so long

Isn't that because Romance languages share their features with Vulgar Latin, which, as far as I know, doesn't include Neuter gender anymore, compared to Classical Latin? It could also be due to a non-Indo-European substrate that would have influenced that choice. My knowledge is not extensive enough to provide a 100% accurate answer though.

Esperto
<a href="/it/translator/jadis" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1387945">Jadis </a>
Iscritto dal: 01.07.2018

To come back to the initial question, I think it's just impossible for a normal French locutor to say "le conscience" instead of "la conscience".
And besides questions about gender and case, don't forget that some languages also use noun classes. They might sound more or less logical. In an Australian aborigene language for example, there is a class for Women, Fire and Dangerous Things :)
 

Guru
<a href="/it/translator/natur-provence" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1289099">Natur Provence </a>
Iscritto dal: 24.04.2016

How would you explain that just the germans (Germani) who were a major reason for the decline, have the three genders? The one will take them and the other who speaks a roman language will leave them?

Guru
<a href="/it/translator/natur-provence" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1289099">Natur Provence </a>
Iscritto dal: 24.04.2016
Ainoa a scris:

To be precise and fair, the German kind of thinking is a mixture of the English one and the French one..

Surely not, all three languages are influenced by the roman and the english comes from a german dialect spoken in the north.
The name of the English says until today by whom they were conquered.: Angelsachsen (Sachsen are a tribe in Germany)

Esperto
<a href="/it/translator/jadis" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1387945">Jadis </a>
Iscritto dal: 01.07.2018
Ainoa a scris:

A French native speaker may say le conscience (instead of the correct la) because he or she is not a flawless machine, but he or she will know / achknowledge it. In a conversation, people will usually let it slide, because in the end, it’s not very important and everyone makes mistakes while speaking / using a language live.

It's just instinctive, never in my life have I heard anything like that, except perhaps in the case of a foreigner talking. Of course everybody can make a flaw, but then it could be in just any sentence, I could say for example "le chot" instead of "le chat", it's just a misspoke, it has nothing to do with gender.

Esperto
<a href="/it/translator/jadis" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1387945">Jadis </a>
Iscritto dal: 01.07.2018

And English was influenced by the French too (Normans), that's why there are often two different words in English for close concepts (calf / veal, etc ; in that case there has been a specialization later).

Esperto
<a href="/it/translator/jadis" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1387945">Jadis </a>
Iscritto dal: 01.07.2018

The Norwegians (Germanic language) have only 2 genders by now, at least as far as the bokmål is concerned : common gender # neuter. They used to have 3 earlier, and there still are remains of it in "nynorsk" ("en jente" in bokmål, "ei jenta" in nynorsk, = a girl).

Esperto
<a href="/it/translator/jadis" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1387945">Jadis </a>
Iscritto dal: 01.07.2018

In Latin : agricola, nauta, poeta, incola (=inhabitant)... are masculine.

Esperto
<a href="/it/translator/kwamegh" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1402305">kwameGH <div class="author_icon" title="Page author" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 13.11.2018

I'm really learning a lot from this discussion.
The gender system in French is one aspect of the language that deters many from learning it.
My country is surrounded by 3 Francophone countries yet people see no use at all for studying French. It is regarded as complex and boring, and in fact, difficult people are sometimes referred to as 'French'.

Recently I was in a French class (basic French for communication as part of my program of study at the university) and people were surprised and amused to learn that 'sein' and 'vagin' were actually masculine words when to them they should 'obviously' have been feminine.

Revisore
<a href="/it/translator/anerneq" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1112972">Anerneq <div class="editor_icon" title="Redacteur" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 10.05.2012
Icey a scris:
Alma Barroca a scris:

I'm studying it for my specialization degree (which is on Romance philology and why Romance languages currently don't have the neutral).

So [@Alma Barroca], can you solve this doubt that's been haunting me for years? Why don't Romance languages have neutrum, when Latin did have it? I've been wondering for so long

As far as I know, the neuter gender wasn't used very often and in many cases in Vulgar Latin it merged with the masculine gender.

Esperto
<a href="/it/translator/jadis" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1387945">Jadis </a>
Iscritto dal: 01.07.2018

Imagine if you knew how we usually call the "penis"...

Moderatore 👨🏻‍🏫🇧🇷✍🏻👨🏻
<a href="/it/translator/don-juan" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1110108">Don Juan <div class="moderator_icon" title="Moderator" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 05.04.2012

Basically that. There was also some confusion, on the hands of writers, in using the neutral, so when Latin evolved, it fell in disuse. Some (most) neutrals became masculine, others became feminine because they wound up ending in -o/-a (their declinations also changed and this termination was understood to be a mark of gender).

Moderatore Earthbound misfit
<a href="/it/translator/icey" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1172336">Icey <div class="moderator_icon" title="Moderator" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 05.04.2013

Which is the rule that still nowadays marks the gender of many (not all though) Italian substantives...well, thank you!

Membro
<a href="/it/translator/preslynn" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1396263">Preslynn </a>
Iscritto dal: 17.09.2018
kwameGH a scris:

I'm really learning a lot from this discussion.
The gender system in French is one aspect of the language that deters many from learning it.
My country is surrounded by 3 Francophone countries yet people see no use at all for studying French. It is regarded as complex and boring, and in fact, difficult people are sometimes referred to as 'French'.

Recently I was in a French class (basic French for communication as part of my program of study at the university) and people were surprised and amused to learn that 'sein' and 'vagin' were actually masculine words when to them they should 'obviously' have been feminine.

There are certain endings that tend to be masculine (-age, -ège, -isme, consonants in general, -eur if it is a physical object) or feminine (-ion, -son, -té, -tié, e with th expection of -age, -ège and -isme, -eur if it is a abstract noun). So le sein, le vagin, le féminisme, le maquillage etc. do follow that rule even though we think that they should be feminine.

Of course that doesn't always work. Some words end in accented letters or vowels other than e, and some go against the rules. Le problème, for example, is masculine and la mer is feminine. But I'm going through a flashcard deck of the 20,000 most common French nouns besides that once I don't know, I'm also drilling ones where I'm unsure of their gender (using un and une because you never learn if a word starting with a vowel is masculine or feminine otherwise). I noticed that more nouns seem to follow the rules than not and a lot that don't are very common like façon, main, bonheur or fois, so I already heard them so many times that I know it's la fois and le bonheur just as I know that two and two is four or what the letter "C" looks like. Though I'm sure that a lot of uncommon ones don't follow the rules either, but if it's less common than the 20,000 most common nouns, I probably don't need to have it memorized because even French people would rarely use words less common than this.

Revisore
<a href="/it/translator/anerneq" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1112972">Anerneq <div class="editor_icon" title="Redacteur" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 10.05.2012
Preslynn a scris:

I noticed that more nouns seem to follow the rules than not and a lot that don't are very common like façon, main, bonheur or fois, so I already heard them so many times that I know it's la fois and le bonheur just as I know that two and two is four or what the letter "C" looks like.

Gets trickier when you take into account the fact many words are homophones in French. La fois is feminine, but le foie isn't. And what about foi? Feminine again. I remember my dear French teacher from Lille who used to say la mère du maire est à la mer.

Esperto
<a href="/it/translator/jadis" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1387945">Jadis </a>
Iscritto dal: 01.07.2018

In the word "oiseau" (bird) there is not a single letter corresponding to its normal pronunciation (wazo). And I always was fascinated by the name of the city of Sceaux : so... many useless letters, when it could as well be written "So".
But the English are not that bad at the game either... I heard that Tibetan was still worse, but I couldn't confirm it.

Revisore
<a href="/it/translator/anerneq" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1112972">Anerneq <div class="editor_icon" title="Redacteur" ></div></a>
Iscritto dal: 10.05.2012
Jadis a scris:

I heard that Tibetan was still worse, but I couldn't confirm it.

Heard about that. It's basically like your example of "oiseau" but it happens way more often. In French it might get hard to write a word correctly only by listening to it, but once you have the written text, you can pretty much guess how it is pronounced. In Tibetan, if you don't know a word, you can't guess neither how it's pronounced nor how it's written.

Membro
<a href="/it/translator/preslynn" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1396263">Preslynn </a>
Iscritto dal: 17.09.2018
DarkJoshua a scris:
Preslynn a scris:

I noticed that more nouns seem to follow the rules than not and a lot that don't are very common like façon, main, bonheur or fois, so I already heard them so many times that I know it's la fois and le bonheur just as I know that two and two is four or what the letter "C" looks like.

Gets trickier when you take into account the fact many words are homophones in French. La fois is feminine, but le foie isn't. And what about foi? Feminine again. I remember my dear French teacher from Lille who used to say la mère du maire est à la mer.

Yes,but at least in this case, they are spelled differently. I remember that foi is feminine because it's fois without the s and foie because of foie gras, which comes from LE canard. You add the e from le onto this foie. I know not everyone thinks/learns like this and that being say, I'm doing the flashcards for a reason. Sometimes you just have to drill that stuff. But I generally don't have any trouble with them if they are spelled differently, at least not moreso than with regular nouns that have only one meaning. So le pays/la paix, la mûre/le mur were less troublesome than la tour and le tour, which I messed up so often, my flashcards kept resetting to repeat every day. Maybe I just have a visual memory.

Guru
<a href="/it/translator/natur-provence" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1289099">Natur Provence </a>
Iscritto dal: 24.04.2016

english is worse than french in pronounciation, i.e Worcester

Guru
<a href="/it/translator/natur-provence" class="userpopupinfo" rel="user1289099">Natur Provence </a>
Iscritto dal: 24.04.2016

other example: le/la tour --> round trip-tour/tower
Le Tour de France/la Tour d'Eiffel

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