this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2025
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A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment

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[–] saltnotsugar@lemm.ee 84 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Any time I use the wrong definite article my German wife will loudly bark “NEIN!” It’s hot but educational.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 38 points 2 months ago

Hey, is your wife free later? I could really use some German lessons. I mean German less- I mean German- I mean Ger- I-I-I mean light domming.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 35 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure any of those french phrases ever translate to "the"

[–] BenVimes@lemmy.ca 36 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You're right, they don't.

The ones beginning with "d" generally translate as "of the," while the "à" ones generally translate as "to the" or "at the."

French has three words that mean "the": "le" (masculine), "la" (feminine), and "les" (plural).

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Right yeah I know. I was just allowing for some potential context I wasn't aware of

[–] RobotZap10000@feddit.nl 30 points 2 months ago
[–] Strider@lemmy.world 26 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] DmMacniel@feddit.org 26 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] MemmingenFan923@feddit.org 24 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Wieso, weshalb, warum? 👏👏

[–] brrt@lemm.ee 22 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Wer nicht fragt, bleibt dumm!

[–] pcrazee@feddit.org 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] aekre@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Die gibt es überall zu sehen

[–] chrizzly@feddit.org 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] dangrousperson@feddit.org 4 points 2 months ago

Um sie zu verstehen

[–] imouto@lemmy.world 24 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I'm trilingual and two of the languages don't even have this bs lol (Mandarin, Japanese, English).

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 23 points 2 months ago (2 children)

In Norwegian (or rest of scandinavistan, as far as I know) we don't even use "the". Suffixes are used instead.

Fish = Fisk
The fish (single) = Fisken
The fish (plural) = Fiskene

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

So, is there no differentiation between "a fish" and "the fish"?

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

A fish - en fisk
The fish - fisken

[–] Nangijala@feddit.dk 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

English would be a lot more fun if they did the same as us.

A fish

Fisha

A man

Mana

A book

Booka.

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[–] Ebber@lemmings.world 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Proud lad from Jutland here: in our dialect we do use "the" in "æ".

The fish = æ fisk

[–] CaptainBlagbird@lemmy.world 23 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

Edit: Shit, I mistook the original meme as about grammatical cases instead of articles. I think Finnish has 15 cases. 🤔🫣

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[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 16 points 2 months ago (2 children)

| French | English | |


|


| | du | of the | | de l' | of the | | de la | of the | | des | of the | | au | to the / at the | | à l' | to the / at the | | à la | to the / at the | | aux | to the / at the |

French has multiple options because it has 2 genders for nouns "the chair" = "la chaise" (female), "the bench" = "le banc" (male), and it changes the article when you're talking about multiple things vs. single things "the benches" = "les bancs".

So, French really has 3 versions of "the": "le" (male, singular), "la" (female, singular), "les" (female or male, singular).

But German... ugh. There's a 4x4 matrix of German words for "the". German had the wisdom to come up with a neuter gender, but the insanity to not apply it to most common objects. Somehow a knife is sexless, a spoon is male and a fork is female. Making it worse, the version of "the" you use for an object depends on whether the object is the subject of a sentence, the object of a sentence, the indirect object of a sentence or possessive. I don't know if it's better or worse (but I'm leaning towards worse) that they re-use a lot of these articles at other spots in the matrix, so "der" is used for male objects in the nominative case, female in the dative case, and plural objects in the genitive case.

| Case | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | Plural | |


|


|


|


|


| | nominative | der | die | das | die | | accusative | den | die | das | die | | dative | dem | der | dem | den | | genitive | des | der | des | der |

Take "Stein" which is stone, not beer glass. If you're an English speaker and are used to adding an "s" to make something plural, and you see "Der Stein" and "Des Steines", you might think that the version with the "es" is the plural, right? Nope, the plural of "Der Stein" is "Die Steine". "Des Steins" is for the possessive case. You'd use "Der Stein" for "The stone is heavy", but if you want to say "The weight of the stone is high" you have to switch to "Des Steins" -- and to add another twist, sometimes it's "Steines" because of reasons.

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[–] A_Chilean_Cyborg@feddit.cl 14 points 2 months ago (5 children)

él la los las

Ellos ellas

Eso esa

Esos Esas.

[–] TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 21 points 2 months ago (7 children)

English is schizo, but “the” is actually a very nice simplification, and It hardly impacts the communication.

[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

… ~~it~~ he hardly impacts …

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[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)
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[–] fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk 11 points 2 months ago

Yorkshire:
T' (Glottal stop sound)

[–] jsomae@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure it's kosher to count à la and de la as separate definite articles.

[–] lugal@sopuli.xyz 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don't speak French but from my understanding, they fulfill the function, cases in German do. But than again you could add "to the" and "of the" in English

[–] jsomae@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Strangely, le itself is missing from this list, probably the most obvious definite article

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[–] wieson@feddit.org 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

More like: by the, of the, for the, to the, belonging to the etc.

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[–] OmegaLemmy@discuss.online 8 points 2 months ago

I don't even know a correct way to translate 'the' to my language, it doesn't really exist

[–] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 2 months ago

You guys have articles?

[–] cepelinas@sopuli.xyz 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Me speaking a language which uses quotes instead of the

[–] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago

That kid is about to ruin someone's microwave lunch.

[–] BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Die Nichteinhaltung der Fallzahlen von eins bis vier vom Mittelpunkt ausgehend stört mich massiv.

Der, des, dem, den

Die, der, der, die

Das, des, dem, das

Die, der, den, die

[–] dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago (6 children)

Norwegian: -en, -a, -et (suffixes)

But also -o, -i and probably other variations depending on location.

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[–] lnxtx@feddit.nl 5 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Polish: (null)
🫲👁️🧠👁️🫱

[–] Ferretyfever0@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 2 months ago

Correct, Polish doesn't exist. It never has, and it never will.

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[–] AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In hungarian the articles are only "a"(which actually works like the english "the" but with a form that is "az" which is like "a" turning into "an" in english) and then "egy" which means "a" in english but also means the number one. Most times from what i notice it works pretty closely to what german or english does. Where my whole "it works pretty intuitively" argument falls apart is that you conjugate your freaking verbs and they work in sometimes completely mysterious ways.

"Eszek egy almát" and "Eszem az almát" -- these are just "I eat an apple" and "I eat the apple"

But "Almát eszek" also works it just sounds more like you are specifically pointing out that its an apple that you are eating(and not an orange for example) and even tho its in the indefinite form it can sound pretty definite depending on context.

But then "Almát eszem" sounds like you are eating a person named Alma because for some reason not having the article makes it sound more personal.

"Eszek" is just eating

And at last "Eszem" sounds like you are pointing out that "I am eating that" or "I am eating that". Also if its in a more rural dialect it could be just the base form.

So yeah its an absolute brainfuck in hungarian.

[–] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

I can see now why English is seen as more universal, even if in an alternate timeline where the Anglophones never became dominant.

[–] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

Too many instances of den, not enough of das.

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