I’m having trouble with nouns (gendered nouns, formal/informal, plural/singular, etc)…

Does anyone have any tips?

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[–] 6 points 5 months ago

Don't learn words like this:

chair - Stuhl, window - Fenster, kitchen - Küche

but like this:

chair - der Stuhl, window - das Fenster, kitchen - die Küche

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Tips for what? What kind of problems specifically?

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    Anything specific or in general? I don't think there's a logical system behind gendered nouns, you'll just have to memorize them sadly. Der Stuhl (the chair) is male, das Fenster (the window) is neutral, die Banane (the banana) is female. It's completely random.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    There are patterns to look out for if what you're having trouble with remembering which gender a noun is: https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/german-resources/grammatik/gender/

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (3 children)

    Learners seem to love these patterns and they're interesting but I'd advise you to not rely on them too much. There are so many exceptions that they're not all that helpful longterm.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    This is clearly a beginner. By the time they're not, they'll be more exposed to exceptions. Saying to ignore patterns and to just memorize every single noun because there are exceptions is a pretentious take at best.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I didn't say to ignore them, I was trying to caution them because I've seen many beginners and intermediates confused when the patterns they memorised keep failing them.

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  • Saying they're not helpful and are detrimental isn't technically saying ignore them, but practically it is. Training wheels get in the way of leaning into a turn on a bike and are therefore detrimental to riding a bike, but they have their uses for beginners. Saying cyclists that have learned to ride shouldn't use training wheels is a) obvious b) not useful. Please be more useful to this beginner.

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