this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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Laittakaa meemejä tänne.

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[–] gun@lemmy.ml 86 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Trick question, washing machines come in many different genders:

[–] Skates@feddit.nl 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I thought pans came in many different genders

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[–] lugal@sopuli.xyz 71 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] Hupf@feddit.de 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Deceptichum@kbin.social 25 points 1 year ago (4 children)

No one who speaks German could be an evil man.

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[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 64 points 1 year ago (26 children)

If you get the wrong one just accuse the examiner of being transphobic.

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[–] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 60 points 1 year ago (8 children)

This is my go to response when people are trying to claim that English is hard... Well at least I don't have to remember what gender has randomly been assigned to every noun I want to use.

[–] tiredofsametab@kbin.social 45 points 1 year ago (16 children)

No, instead you have to learn to read and spell in a system that often sounds quite different to what is written. I want to read a book that's never been read. I want to live a life alive at a live show. Anything ending in ~ough which has something like 6 or 8 different sounds. I'm a native speaker trying to work with my wife on English (we speak Japanese at home). It's insane for any reading/spelling.

[–] Slovene@feddit.nl 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Are you through laughing at the English kneading dough in a trough, though?

[–] tiredofsametab@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago

As soon as I stop hiccoughing and cut this bough

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[–] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Oh yeah, unlike French where 2/3 of each word is silent.

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[–] oce@jlai.lu 15 points 1 year ago

I rarely hear people saying English is hard, except for the pronunciation.

[–] cows_are_underrated@feddit.de 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] Maultasche@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And then, when you're learning French, you have to watch out for words that have a different gender than in German.

[–] Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 year ago

la lune - der Mond

le soleil - die Sonne

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[–] PepeLivesMatter@lemmy.today 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Have you tried asking the washing machine for its preferred pronouns?

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[–] Quacksalber@sh.itjust.works 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Easy. Since it's the womans' job to do laundry, the washing machine is also female ^/s^

[–] Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So you mean la bite is ...

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[–] Hailstorm8440@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 year ago

Me in my mandarin class not having to conjugate, add pronouns, use words like the and to, and not having words more than 4 syllables. But having to learn 10,000 + characters

[–] drathvedro@lemm.ee 22 points 1 year ago (15 children)

Female in Russian, because the word machine/машина ends with A, and so any machine, from tattoo gun to steam engine is female gendered. I always thought French and German worked in somewhat similar manner?

[–] SolarMech@slrpnk.net 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It works like that in French until you use a different word for the machine.

"Mon ordinateur est une bonne machine". In a single sentence my computer was described with words both male and female.

It's just vocabulary and grammar, not the deep essence or identity of things or people.

[–] tryptaminev@feddit.de 8 points 1 year ago

it is in German too.

It is die Waschmaschine. and a Steam Engine ist die Dampfmaschine. And it is a very straight foreard naming convention. Just add what kind of machine it is to the front of the noun.

[–] trafguy@midwest.social 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

I didn't learn of any rhyme or reason to it in German when I took classes on it. In fact, in a few cases, the gender changes the meaning of the word. Der See und die See, for example. One means lake and the other means sea/ocean.

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[–] bouh@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This one is funny actually! You can say une machine à laver, or un lave linge. :D

[–] jvrava9@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Never in my life did I hear the term lave linge

[–] grayman@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Really? I've seen it at least twice in the last minute.

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[–] diemartin@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 year ago (14 children)

In Spanish it even depends on which dialect you're speaking.

In some places it's "la lavadora" (she/her), and in other places it's "el lavarropas" (he/him).

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[–] BedSharkPal@lemmy.ca 21 points 1 year ago (13 children)

How aggregious is misgendering items in other languages? I assume it's no big deal and may not even be worth correcting most of the time?

[–] lurch@sh.itjust.works 32 points 1 year ago (8 children)

In German, they sometimes add the gender into the word. Like if you hire a few "Stripper" in German, they will be all male, while "Stripperinnen" would be all female and there is no generally accepted way if you want a mix or non-binaries, you'd have to describe it. This can lead to quite a lot of confusion, especially with words derived from English like this.

So what I'm saying is, if you use the English word and misgender, it can be a big deal. Like 7 or 8 inches big, on some occasions.

[–] JamesBean@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago (13 children)

The example you used involved humans. They were asking about items.

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[–] Linnce@beehaw.org 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It sounds very weird and you know immediately it's a foreigner speaking. When you are fluent the genders just come naturally, I don't think I've ever seen a native making a mistake like that, maybe children.

I wouldn't correct anyone unless they want to learn though, the noun itself is more important and it carries the meaning across.

This is for Brazilian Portuguese at least.

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[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's jarring but obviously completely acceptable from someone learning the language

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[–] TheDarkKnight@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (8 children)

It’s probably makes sense once explained properly but as an outsider to gendered languages in general it feels like the stupidest archaic idea ever lol.

[–] Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Grammatical gender has nothing to do with sexual gender. It is simply the expression on how words are declined in different cases.

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[–] whome@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

End-syllables help a long way:

For example the often cited neutral: girl/Mädchen is a diminutive. So everything with -chen or -lein becomes neutral and therefore: das.

(Brötchen, Männlein, Häuschen, Fräulein)

https://mein-deutschbuch.de/genusbestimmung.html#nachsilben

As a bonus: in plural everything is "die" so just formulate everything in plural and you are always right.

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[–] Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Une machine, putain !

Noticed that space after putain ? When the sign has two things, like an exclamation mark or a colon, you put the space in between. Otherwise not !

Sorry for the the frenchification by using the "espace insécable" in the English text.

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