I know what this word would mean^^. And yes, "sie" since Graf Zeppelin here is female :c.
I'm always confused over when to switch to natural gender (over grammatical gender) when using German pronouns. Most texts seem to stick to grammatical gender when the pronoun immediately follows the gendered noun (e.g. Träger), but they will flip to the natural gender at some point (especially when the distance between the noun and pronoun increases). Mädchen being a notable exception, where almost everyone seems to use 'sie' at first opportunity instead of using 'es'.
I'm always confused over when to switch to natural gender (over grammatical gender) when using German pronouns. Most texts seem to stick to grammatical gender when the pronoun immediately follows the gendered noun (e.g. Träger), but they will flip to the natural gender at some point (especially when the distance between the noun and pronoun increases). Mädchen being a notable exception, where almost everyone seem to use 'sie' at first opportunity instead of using 'es'.
What's your advice on this, as a native speaker?
Well, I think you know "we" have three forms to describe the gender: Der, die, das. In English, there would only be "das" since "the" is also genderless. I personally have no problems with the usage of the gender and therefore I have no real opinion about this. But in terms of simplicity, german is one of the most dificult languages out there because of its three cases. In english, there you have a verb and is doesn't need to get conjugated. Same thing for adjectives which are always the same in english (for example evil man/woman is evil -> Böser Mann ist böse/ Böse Frau ist böse. It's a bit because the adjective adapt to the noun. In French, it's the same, but there we have only two genders (le/la).
For the "das Mädchen": It sounds strange. Every foreign people two german would say that "Mädchen" (girl) is female. But it's neutral in german. Like I said, I just use these words, but I can agree when someone says that German isn't logical or easy to learn.
In english, there you have a verb and is doesn't need to get conjugated. Same thing for adjectives which are always the same in english (for example evil man/woman is evil -> Böser Mann ist böse/ Böse Frau ist böse.
Well strictly speaking, English words also require conjugation (e.g. 'swim' 'swims' 'swam' 'am/is/are swimming' 'has swum'), but yeah, it doesn't differentiate between genders for nouns and adjectives.
Early Modern English (think Shakespeare or King James Bible) verbs demonstrated a greater degree of conjugation, with some of them highly resembling their German counterparts (compare have/hast/hath with habe/hast/hat), but it still didn't have gendered nouns and adjectives.
Provence said:
Well, I think you know "we" have three forms to describe the gender: Der, die, das. In English, there would only be "das" since "the" is also genderless. I personally have no problems with the usage of the gender and therefore I have no real opinion about this. But in terms of simplicity, german is one of the most dificult languages out there because of its three cases. In english, there you have a verb and is doesn't need to get conjugated. Same thing for adjectives which are always the same in english (for example evil man/woman is evil -> Böser Mann ist böse/ Böse Frau ist böse. It's a bit because the adjective adapt to the noun. In French, it's the same, but there we have only two genders (le/la).
French loanwords in German (or Eigennamen and Fremdwörter in general, really) give me more headaches. It's die Front, but for some weird reason this changes to der Front National when referring to the political party. Why? Because it's a proper noun and the French uses le front? I don't know.
And Bildergeschichte is feminine, but the loanwords Comic and Manga are masculine. Welp, I don't know why.
Provence said:
For the "das Mädchen": It sounds strange. Every foreign people two german would say that "Mädchen" (girl) is female. But it's neutral in german. Like I said, I just use these words, but I can agree when someone says that German isn't logical or easy to learn.
I've come to accept that grammatical gender in German (and most European languages) are usually based on how the word sounds instead of any logical basis in real life. In German the ending sounds are the most important. So anything taking the -chen suffix is neuter due to well, the presence of the suffix. Other examples include Hausmeerschweinchen and Brötchen.
Verb-er nouns are usually masculine, and nouns ending in -e are usually feminine (plenty of exceptions though, with Name being the most notable case).
Since I'm not a native speaker, I tend to stick to grammatical gender whenever possible. It's just well, with words like Mädchen or Fraulein, the first half of a sentence will have it take neuter adjectives, but the second half would change to sie with feminine adjectives, making the sentence sound... I dunno, a bit weird?
French loanwords in German (or Eigennamen and Fremdwörter in general, really) give me more headaches. It's die Front, but for some weird reason this changes to der Front National when referring to the political party. Why? Because it's a proper noun and the French uses le front? I don't know.
And Bildergeschichte is feminine, but the loanwords Comic and Manga are masculine. Welp, I don't know why.
It's because in french it's le front national. As you can see, we don't translate the word, but we stay with the french word. Otherwise it would be Französische/Nationale Front. But I can ensure you that both ways are possible in german, but you will most likely find only "der" in internet articles in german about the FN.
And I just saw that there is a first paragraph: Yes, you're right about right. He/she/it with s and stuff like that^^. But as you also aid: In gender, there isn't a difference^^.
About that chen-suffix: It's also called diminutive. So you take a word like...don't know Haus. And then you make it more "cute" (^o^) with adding the suffix. Note that a/o/u should change into ä/ö/ü. Haus -> Häuschen, Brot -> Brötchen, Uhr -> Ührchen (<- lol). Turning it into a thing where the gender is missing, since every word has now the same ending. Therefore "das"^^.
About the second one with the e-suffix, I'm not aware of. Probably because it's only relevant when learning german to have some rules. But that's meh. Der Junge, der Name to name two. I don't know if this rule holds up that well^^.
And the last one: Das Fräulein und ihre Katze. It's weird, indeed.
About that chen-suffix: It's also called diminutive. So you take a word like...don't know Haus. And then you make it more "cute" (^o^) with adding the suffix. Note that a/o/u should change into ä/ö/ü. Haus -> Häuschen, Brot -> Brötchen, Uhr -> Ührchen (<- lol). Turning it into a thing where the gender is missing, since every word has now the same ending. Therefore "das"^^.
About the second one with the e-suffix, I'm not aware of. Probably because it's only relevant when learning german to have some rules. But that's meh. Der Junge, der Name to name two. I don't know if this rule holds up that well^^.
And the last one: Das Fräulein und ihre Katze. It's weird, indeed.
Interesting. Finally I know how this thing works in english :D :3. But how is it decided if a letter changes? For example cat -> kitty (c to k)
My bad, it's formed from 'kitten', not 'cat'. Kitty is the diminutive used for both cats and kittens. Catty is not used (it means "cat-like" instead, and functions as an adjective).
My bad, it's formed from 'kitten', not 'cat'. Kitty is the diminutive used for both cats and kittens. Catty is not used (it means "cat-like" instead, and functions as an adjective).
Side note, the most 'famous' Japanese diminutive is probably -chan. There are a bunch of others too, like the -kko suffix (or the kanji 'ko' 子 used when forming word compounds).
