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What's the point of gendered words in certain languages? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I know a lot of languages have some aspects that probably seem a bit strange to non-native speakers…in the case of gendered words is there a point other than “just the way its always been” that explains it a bit better?

I don’t have gendered words in my native language, and from the outside looking in I’m not sure what gendered words actually provide in terms of context? Is there more to it that I’m not quite following?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are a lot of things in German that make far more sense than English (the pronunciation of ie vs ei for example), but nobody needs that many words for you or the.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I love German's case structure! Except that the gender system slices through what could be an elegant way of piecing sentences together in any order without ambiguity and turns it into a muddled mess that requires you to memorize the silly gender of every damned noun in the language. ☹