People who speak English as a second language: how confusing is it that nouns are not gendered? (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 weeks ago by Zombiepirate@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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It's a rare example of English being simpler than other languages, so I'm curious if it's hard for a new speaker to keep the nouns straight without the extra clues.

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[-] ytg@sopuli.xyz 12 points 3 weeks ago

It’s not confusing at all, except in the very specific case of nouns referring to people or animals that don’t have gendered variants.

For example, in my language, the word corresponding to “(a) sheep” has a masculine and feminine form, with the feminine used neutrally. Consequently, when seeing “sheep” in English, I assume the feminine and seeing it used with “he” is a bit of cognitive dissonance.

Similarly, most words for human professions are by default masculine.

[-] Mad_Punda@feddit.org 5 points 3 weeks ago

I remember reading a story written in English, and it kept mentioning „the cook“ (no pronoun, no name). My gender biased brain assumed the cook must be male. So I got confused when the pronoun „she“ finally appeared. I had to reread the paragraph to understand what was going on.
Embarrassing and eye opening.

[-] GlenRambo@jlai.lu 3 points 3 weeks ago

Ive spent some times on farms and haven't ever herd/used he for a singular male sheep before.

If its a singular male I would say the ram.

But its just normally sheep, generally female. If you want to be specific its weathers, ewes, lambs or rams.

this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2024

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