Dear spanish speakers: I don't get it.
I'm trying to learn spanish but the rules as far as gender goes is absolutely insane.
Why is "el cerveza" wrong but "la cerveza" right? What makes the beer feminine or masculine?
It's an object, so it's not supposed to have a gender.
I know German sort of has this problem too. I don't get it, and so far this has been my largest hurdle in learning a foreign language because to me it makes zero sense to do this.
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IDK about spanish, but in italian the way I always remember is Mario is a man and Maria is a woman.
Words that end in O are masculine and words that end in A are feminine
...
>Why is "el cerveza" wrong but "la cerveza" right?
That's literally the most stupid example you could have picked.
Words ending in a are usually feminine except weird cases like agua.
Words ending in e, o are usually masculine.
Yeah it COULD be that simple.
But then you have words like "el lapiz" "el dia" "la noche" that don't follow that fucking rule.
What the fuck do you think I'm doing?
There are tons of words that don't follow the rule. How do you do it?
Las aguas can be said, at least in Spain.
If you think spanish is random try german.
>Why is "el cerveza" wrong but "la cerveza" right? What makes the beer feminine or masculine?
Just look at how the word ends, "la cerveza", "las casas", "la meza"..
Of course, you have exceptions like "el agua" (those were set up rndomly, so you just have to memorize them)
>It's an object, so it's not supposed to have a gender.
gender =/= sex, it doesn't mean the beer has a pussy, it means that word follows the same rules as "women"
it ends with a, therefroe is femenine
cerveza
auto, or car in english, ends with o, therefore is masculine
only nouns that end with a are femenine, except agua and a couple of other exceptions
its that easy, noun ends with "a", is femenine
>But then you have words like "el lapiz" "el dia" "la noche" that don't follow that fucking rule.
Oh noes! Lil' amerilard has to use his brain to memorize something for the first time in his life!
Every language has random shit, or do you think we didn't have to memorize a shit ton of irregular english verbs that didn't just follow the rule of ending in -ed?
Thats the thing
Forgetting the fact that it honestly doesn't make sense, there are so many exceptions to the rule and I keep getting corrected and called out for it when I speak.
Also, I realize my examples are shit but generally I face this problem when trying to have a conversation in spanish.
>I keep getting corrected and called out for it when I speak.
How else would you be able to learn?
What's a meza?
if its a regular noun then it always apply, in the example of "las Aguas", you are talking about plural or an specific noun, for example "Las aguas del rio", or "Las Aguas de la señora"
The rules for english are well set and clear.Exceptions are actually that, exceptions, and are rare enough to not need to memorize.
Spanish has so many "exceptions" that the -o -a rule barely applies. I get that I have to practice it a lot in order to overcome this problem, but I just wanted to point out how absurd it is to me.
Just read books in spanish.
English is way simpler than spanish, that's why you find it so hard. My recommendation: text and speak with spanish speakers
>foreign languaages aren't my native language
more news at 3
That's the same in french too, that's funny I remember thinking it was weird when I was a kid. I couldn't understand what makes a chair feminine when I looked at one. With practice you'll get used to it eventully
>and are rare enough to not need to memorize
Since when are verbs like begin, blow, choose, drink, forbid, forgive, "rare and unnecessary to memorize"?
they're germanic and follow german verbing
to kill is germanic as well
I feel your pain, it's bad enough having to remember a whole new vocabulary let alone having to learn 2 words for every one
It keeps happening so often that I feel like I'm not improving. It's also embarassing when people laugh at you all the time for it.
All I'm saying is that it makes no sense. I'm complaining about the concept itself, not about the people or the country.
articles make no sense to me
please remove articles from the english language
Ah ye good ole genderless speaker going about the problem the wrong way.
>all the time
wait to your learn the nouns that dont even follow the rules or use different artcles and even stem changes to mean something else.
What about these words makes them unique or difficult? I'm genuinely asking.
I agree they sort of don't.
How would you go about it?
I'm trying to learn German at the moment and it's pretty difficult
I made the mistake of trying to talk to people on /deutsch/
They were kind about my garbage German though and helped me correct it
I think it's just natural for a native speaker to correct you, and it's extremely helpful
How long have you been learning Spanish for?
I met a dude that had colombian parents but was raised in USA, came back here when he was 9, and it took him 6 whole years to stop making those mistakes so often. He is 18 now and he still fucks up every now and then.
Being a perfectionist is by no means a bad thing, i also try to speak english as close as i can to a native speaker, but there's a fucking long way to go.
Don't worry abou it. Even my professors spell shit wrong.
>tfw the damn Spanish had to colonize the country south of us with their terrible language instead of someone interesting like the French or some of the Germans
All of those languages use genders dummy
Just the last year.
Yes, all the time. They are not forgiving, especially the police in Mexico.
6 years? Did he live there the whole time or did he go back to the US?
>I made the mistake of trying to talk to people on /deutsch/
You tried and you need some experience
>They were kind about my garbage German
Could have went the other way, but you posted at a good time.
>Yes, all the time.
Must be their way of feeling superior for once.
That they follow no rules and you just need to memorize them by brute force in their past/participle forms.
>begin, began, begun
>blow, blew, blown
>drink, drank, drunk
>choose, chose, chosen
If i look at them it's pretty obvious and natural now, but for any starter they look like moonrunes.
Lived here 99% of the time, just going to USA for some quick visits here and there.
Don't think of it like "male" and "female" or you will never get it.
The categories could just be called "a words" and "o words", or "group 1 words" and "group 2 words" and in your grammar book it would say, "Group 1 words shre the simillarity of ending in the letter a, and use the word 'la', and group 2 words tend to end in o and use 'el'"
"Feminine" and "masculine" are just the name of the categories, and the categories are just grammatical patterns, that is, words that end in "a" recieve "la" and words that end in "o" recieve "el".
Remember that the names for these categories were created long after the language was being spoken. It's not like someone decided that there should be words that recieve one form of the word "the" and words that recieve another form of it-just like we didn't consciously create "a" and "an" in english but there are rules for which one you are supposed to use, established by tradition.
The "a words" dont all end in a, and the "o words" dont all end in o, so they were named something else--masculine and feminine, probably due to some old timey linguistics naming conventions, nothing to do with gender except for the fact that things with an actual gender (mujer, hombre) fall into those categories. In fact, that's probably how the categories got named like that. but you will continue to be confused if you get overly focused on benis and bagina when conceptualizing this grammatical category distinction.
he should use sources to learn it. The book is good, but no one talks like a book.
>You tried and you need some experience
Yeah, they showed me I needed to polish up on my verb cases and tenses, and also adjectives
>Could have went the other way, but you posted at a good time.
Are the /deutsch/ posters usually pretty nice? There was one poster who took a genuine interest in NZ. He was pretty cool
Yeah but at least they sound nicer than this fucking l Spanish shit
>But then you have words like "el lapiz" "el dia" "la noche" that don't follow that fucking rule.
me again and im not an etymologist so i cant give you specific examples, but some of these irregularities are due to greek words and other foreign words making their way into spanish, and being placed in certain categories pretty arbitrarily. there are other reasons for these kinds of irregularities that you can look up (for example words that start with an "a" sound recieve "el", such as "el agua" udep.edu.pe
Atleast you are really trying to learn it, I hope you get to perfectionate it one day, and don't feel frustrated enough to stop learning
Can someone answer the part about why nouns are assigned a gender. What's the point of this? And how are they assugned?
>Are the /deutsch/ posters usually pretty nice?
Depends on the time, it gets worse the more you reach the evening, improves at late night and worsens again around 13. Also, I was one of the dudes helping you, but not the one asking about NZ.
>Also, I was one of the dudes helping you
Thanks for that
this I'll rephrase it.
Pretend you are a linguist studying a language. You notice that when people are speaking this language, half of the time that people say "the", they are saying "la", and the other half of the time, they are saying "el".
You notice that "the girl" is "la chica" and the woman is "la mujer" and "the boy" and "the man" is "el chico" and "el hombre"
As a mnemonic device to yourself, you decide to therefore call all "la" words "feminine", since they follow the same rule as "girl" and "woman" and all "el" words masucline because they follow the same rule as the word "boy" and "man".
So now you have "masculine" and "feminine" words, even though a chair has no gender, it follows the same rule as the word for "woman", so it gets listed under "feminine" in your collection of vocabulary that you have learned about this language.
Now, why does it follow the same pattern as the word woman?
The answer to that is pretty much irrelevant. It's a mystery buried in the history of the language, going back to latin which has noun declensions--even more of these categories for words based on what grammar pattern they follow, and honestly, it's probably just because the word for chair ends in ana, as do most other words in its category, so people put "la" with it out of habit and now it's a rule. It would make you too angry to research it more and learn about declensions so you decide to just accept and memorize the masucline/feminine thing of Spanish and not worry too much about it anymore.
I suppose its tough but doesn't spanish do the same thing?
Thanks for some clarity. I'll take your advice.
Same wishes back, pal
>Thanks for that
Kein Ding, Brudi.
*"ends in an a", not "ana", sorry for that and probably numerous other typos
That makes a lot of sense, i must have missed the original post, thanks
>is sat on
>does not seat on people
Feminine
Spanish/French are Alpha languages.
bitches moan AAAAA therefore feminine
Men roar OOOOO therefore masculine