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Comment on It bothers me when cat memes refer to the pictured cat as "he," but I can tell from its coat pattern that it's female. I may know too much about cats.

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SanctimoniousApe@lemmings.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

The German language has three forms of the word “the” - the two genders, and neutral. As a kid living in Germany for a while, this gave me fits - things like doors, tables, windows, etc. are gendered, but I’ll be damned if I could ever figure out any pattern to predict which would get which gender (or neutral).

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Little8Lost@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
The pattern is “what souds good”
Die Tür -> sounds good
Das Boot -> souds good
Die Boot -> souds bad

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- SanctimoniousApe@lemmings.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  “Sounds good” in language is usually something you’re used to hearing, so it “sounds good” because you’ve already heard it that way & are used to it. Doesn’t help one lock for those not already deeply immersed in hearing the language routinely.
  
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  - iltoroargento@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    This is why I love Lemmy. Linguistics from a cat post!
    
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- leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The problem is that what sounds good in German doesn’t necessarily sound good in other gendered languages (romance languages, for instance), so if you know both you need to know multiple mutually incompatible lists of arbitrarily gendered words.
  
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- MarieMarion@literature.cafe ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  As a French speaker, I stg your genders for LE sun and LA moon don’t make a lick of sense, and sound really wrong.
  DER Sonne is obviously a guy. Goes to the gym every day, lifts weights, big muscles, maybe a bandana. Picture a ladies’ man from 1985 in a beach town, and that’s him. And DIE Mund is the protectress of women.
  
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- Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  “Der Tür” sounds awful, you make a lot of sense
  
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