why

You'd love German – there is absolutely zero system or logic behind what word has which of the three genders.

I only studied french for a short time, but I feel like that really doesn't work for french:

• chemisier, blouse, is masculine
• ceinture, belt, is feminine

Those were the two onces I could remember like this half a year after ending my french studies, but could be that those are only two uncommon counterexamples.

Also, both of these are what you would "expect" in German (die Bluse, der Gürtel)

You'll be right 50% of the times. Or 33% in german. And it doesn't match between languages. Like, "cat" is a she in german and a he in french. Often synonyms have different genders : une lettre/un courrier (both mean a mail).

I think the issue is that you are searching your mind for correlations between gender and sexism-related, which is often easier than searching for non-correlation. If I ask you "quick, think of a singer that wears leather", you'll find one instantly. But if I ask "quick, find a singer that doesn't wear leather" it takes a while, even though there more of them.

If you want a better impression of the phenomenon, open a dictionary, go over words one by one and count the points.

And also "organ" (the instrument) in french is male when singular and female when plural. "C'est un bel orgue" and "Ce sont de belles orgues".

That's what I love about my native Hungarian, even pronouns are ungendered.

Everything else is stupid complicated though. We have tonal harmony to worry about instead.

I also found that if you really want to be understood in French, you have to force yourself into an over the top, bordering on ridiculous French accent.

So the key to speaking good French is to default to the most sexist position possible and intentionally speak like an asshole.

There was a whole battle about whether covid was masculine or feminine. I think feminine won, probably because it sucked.

Dogs are male? In my language dogs are female. So I guess there is no standard for gendered language.

It's likely the same as English spelling. Just years and years of repeated exposure, and you eventually pick up most of it through osmosis

How does anyone manage to keep allll the words pronunciation and spelling they know is already amazing, craming pronouns on top of that isn't much worse

It is not a problem for native speakers though. These kinds of things are only something you think about if you are learning it as a second language later in life. If you grew up with them you just aborb the information and use it without thinking about it.

There’s a pattern to it. I don’t know what it is, and I’m not sure anyone knows consciously. But for example, when creating new words (eg. fantasy/sci-fi context) there usually isn’t any confusion as to what that word’s gender will be, it just sounds bad with the wrong pronoun. There are a few exceptions of course, same as “autobus” and “avion” which technically have a gender assigned but people toss a coin every time.

Oh hey, someone that used gender in regards to Spanish correctly.

I say that in regards to one of my Spanish teachers from high school who would always grade us wrong when we say male/female instead of masculine/feminine. One day he explained that by saying "Objects have gender! People have sex!"

I didn't know Swahili was that progressive.

Spanish is also easier than French because you can mostly guess the gender based on the ending of the word. Most often if the word ends in "a" it's female (la marca, la hora, la vida, la ventana). If it ends in "o" it's mostly male (el teatro, el dormitorio, el niño...) And for the nouns that don't end in "a" or "o" there are often patterns. When there are exceptions, it's often because it's a borrowed word or a shortened word. Like "la moto" for the motorcycle, but the full word for motorcycle is "la motocycleta", same with "la foto" -> "la fotografia".

French also has some patterns, but not the easy a -> female, o -> male rule that Spanish has.

In French, it's 'le pénis,' but nobody says that. 'Dick,' is feminine (la bite.)

Also, 'vagina' is masculine, but 'pussy' is feminine, because if you were to say 'le chat' it would mean a cat, but by feminising the word, it becomes 'la chatte,' meaning pussy.

As someone who grew up Anglophone, I actually find gendered languages much more precise. On the other hand, in order to make yourself understood one must have a rich vocabulary, because the definitions of words are often more narrow than in English.

And don't even get me started on phrasal verbs... English is messy.

Sorry, I don’t understand what I am seeing here. Is that someone xeeting a screenshot of someone reporting to Duolingo that penis should be feminine, not masculine in Spanish?

I would love to see that discuss

I think it’s to make it less ambiguous.

In English you just use the same word and figure it out from context. Someone else gave some other Spanish examples but I like “right” (direction) = “la derecha” vs “right” (human rights) = “los derechos”.

Of course there’s still so many variants of meaning that grammatical gender doesn’t help much.

Now if you would level up once more and stopped having gendered pronouns.

That’s the ultimate level 😀

Yes, but what if you're a man married to a man? Which one is the washing machine? 🤌

Buuuut cars are a men thing aren't they? And yet it's la voiture...... Curious.......

Doesn't work for le lave-linge though.

¿Por qué no los dos?

You will be understood, it will just give people a small pause.

Sometimes it may cause confusion, like "the phone (he) went through the washing machine (she) and now <she/he> is broken" changes meaning if you get the pronoun wrong. But then if you are used to disambiguate thIs kind of situation - and you have to in english - it shouldn't happen too often

It would be like in English if someone says the "I took the fono to the storage but he didn't have batterons for it" when you mean "I took the phone to the store but he didn't have batteries for it" Without the correct-gendered article it sounds wrong, and sometimes it changes the meaning so it's a different word. But, if there's enough context often you can figure out what someone is trying to say. But, if you're the kind of foreigner who doesn't know the genders for common things, you also probably have a very strong accent and are making all kinds of other errors, like using the wrong articles, getting the word order wrong, etc.

In the end, a lot of it is about context and how else you're trying to communicate. Like, if you're holding the phone and say "fono" it will be obvious what you mean. If someone knows you were trying to get a replacement battery, then there will be enough context to understand batterons.

On the phone?

remember to raise those washing machines and feed them the best laundry detergent you can! i recommend arm and hammer (partly because of the logo - the logo was used a lot in de leonism, and armand hammer supports socialism)

you don't. they call you.

Bonjour

How do you say “no means no”

Which godforsaken language is that?

Which language is that?

Tell me the Gender of Nutella or Yogurt, then :)

What if it's a loan word from another language, like "the facebook" (El Feis) or "playstation" or "hentai"?

Common nonbinary French W

Is that when they decided to make counting past 70 complicated?

My native language doesn't have any articles and there is no distinction between he and she.

bullpies!

i don't like English, but those are things it does right!

who the hell needs TWELVE definite articles?!

And they still have trouble learning it.

So poor they held to sell off cases as well.

Feminine too, like all the machines

What do you mean you heard it before, it’s a brand new?