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[-] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 111 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Just wait until you look into French numbers.

How different languages say 97:

🇬🇧: 90+7 (ok, there is some jank in English numbers - 13-19 are in line with the Germanic pronunciation, i.e. pronounced "right to left", as a weird hold-over from the more Germanic Old English)

🇪🇸: 90+7

🇩🇪: 7+90

🇫🇷: 4x20+10+7

And if you think that's bad, the Danes actually make the French look sane...

🇩🇰: 7+(-½+5)x20

Even Danes generally don't really know why their numbers are like that, they just remember and go along with it.

[-] Frozzie@lemmy.world 56 points 9 months ago

You know everytime your mention French number, there is always belgian or Swiss who will tell you :

🇧🇪🇨🇭: 90+7

☝️🤓

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[-] problematicPanther@lemmy.world 33 points 9 months ago

what the actual fuck is wrong with you, denmark?

[-] Moghul@lemmy.world 22 points 9 months ago

While learning Danish I figured out that's just the arcane incantation for the number. It's language juju, and you just have to know that it be like it do. Yes, it's syv og halvfems, but the reason behind it doesn't matter anymore. The rest of the double digit numbers are a mess as well; 30 is tredive (three tens in old norse) but starting with 50 it's this weird score (20) and half-to-score system.

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[-] casmael@lemm.ee 16 points 9 months ago

https://youtu.be/s-mOy8VUEBk?si=1dudvGSjUd9VI11D

🇩🇰🫡

It’s not easy running an isenkramstornunung when nobody remembers what anything is called

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[-] mellowheat@suppo.fi 96 points 9 months ago

"Je voudrais un baguette" I once asked in a parisian boulangerie. I don't think anyone has looked at me with the same level of disgust before as the older lady selling the breads.

"Voilà, une baguette.", the "une" flying through me like an icicle.

[-] Stamets@lemmy.world 84 points 9 months ago

"Stupid fucking foreigner thinking my bread has a dick..."

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[-] volvoxvsmarla@lemm.ee 42 points 9 months ago

I remember standing in line for crepes in Le Havre, I just had my first year of French in school and I was practicing how to order in my head, nervously repeating "un crepe avec sucre", and killed myself over not remembering the gender of crepe. So it's finally my turn in line and I order nervously (I am 13 years old) and they reply with "pancake with sugar, no problem" and I'm just like 😭

Somehow people not even giving you a chance to practice your language skills is awful

[-] Deway@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago

Damn French, une crêpe and a pancake are not the same thing!

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[-] Rodeo@lemmy.ca 15 points 9 months ago

Baguettes are distinctly penis shaped, so the French are just wrong about that.

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[-] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 65 points 9 months ago

Tfw the washing machine is gender fluid

[-] I_Miss_Daniel@lemmy.world 32 points 9 months ago

I believe women sometimes use them to aid in the release of gender fluid.

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[-] Mr_Blott@lemmy.world 18 points 9 months ago

You can use gender powder too

[-] Triple_B@lemmy.zip 16 points 9 months ago
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[-] Mr_Blott@lemmy.world 63 points 9 months ago

Me speaking to a French guy last week -

"We've just been the the musée de l'automobile in Mulhouse"

"Sorry, where?"

"Mulhouse"

"Where?"

"Mulhouse"

"Aaaaaah I see! It's pronounced [pronounces Mulhouse *exactly the same FUCKING way I just pronounced it]

😂 Happens very regularly

[-] tiredofsametab@kbin.run 40 points 9 months ago

Just because your ears can't hear a difference doesn't mean that there is none. I deal with this a lot when Japanese ask me for help and can't differentiate between certain sounds

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[-] Ethalis@jlai.lu 27 points 9 months ago

No offense intended since I'm fully incapable of pronouncing tons of English words properly (fuck "squirrel" specifically), but as a Frenchman who has lived near Mulhouse for a few years and interacted with a lot of foreign students, what you said probably wasn't close to being the exact same as that guy

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[-] No_Change_Just_Money@feddit.de 52 points 9 months ago

Female, and I am sure there hides a boomer joke here

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[-] Crass_Spektakel@lemmy.world 45 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Enter German and Gendering: You can not say Programmer to address all Programmers in the room. You have to call them Programmerin und Programmer or Programmer:in or Programmende. And yes, most of these words aren't even German but if you don't use them you are a Grammar Nazi.

And btw, the fact that we address females with "die" does not mean we want them dead, thank you and have a good day.

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[-] Dasus@lemmy.world 39 points 9 months ago

Due to the increased acceptance of non-conforming identities, it's become more prevalent to either ask for pronouns, tell them to a person you meet, or have them somewhere visible in things like gameshows.

That's quite as silly to me as this whole "what gender is this washing machine" nonsense is to English-speaking people.

Here in Finland, we don't have gendered language. Even with third person pronouns, we usually default to "it" instead of "him/her/they". Except for pets. They always get the proper pronoun "hän". It's just respectful.

So yeah, just like the English wonder why they have to learn different words for something needlessly gendered in France, I too, as a Finn, wonder why I have to learn different words for something needlessly gendered in English.

[-] groats_survivor@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago

Right or wrong, calling a person "it" in English is incredibly disrespectful

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[-] hOrni@lemmy.world 38 points 9 months ago

Polish speaker here. We not only have gendered nouns but also verbs and adjectives.

[-] BambiDiego@lemmy.world 24 points 9 months ago

Spanish speaker here. For as chaotic and wild as English is, I've always appreciated that it has no gendered nouns. Why are chairs female? Makes no sense

[-] Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com 18 points 9 months ago

Dick in French is, you guessed it, female.

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[-] pipariturbiini@sopuli.xyz 15 points 9 months ago

Maybe you are interested in Finnish. We do not have gendered pronouns either. Everyone is just "hän".

[-] TheIllustrativeMan@lemmy.world 15 points 9 months ago

So you're saying Hän is Solo?

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[-] merdaverse@lemmy.world 34 points 9 months ago

While gendered nouns are stupid, I at least appreciate Italian because you can just learn the word and get its gender from the end part of the word. In German, however, it's completely random and you have to learn the gender with the word.

[-] GargleBlaster@lemmy.world 28 points 9 months ago

I don't know what you're on about. It's "die Waschmaschine" (washing machine, female), "das Waschmittel" (laundry detergent, neutral) and "der Trockner" (dryer, male).

Pretty self explanatory /s

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[-] chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de 30 points 9 months ago
[-] GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip 20 points 9 months ago

Disclaimer: this is terrible advice if you are trying to actually learn the proper grammar, don’t follow it.

That being said, you can get by in everyday situations perfectly fine using "De" for anything, especially if you have a foreign accent people will forgive you.

De junge, de Mädchen, de Baby, de Tisch, de Stuhl, de Feuerzeuggas-Nachfüllkartusche. People will understand.

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[-] EunieIsTheBus@feddit.de 28 points 9 months ago

A washing machine is obviously female because doing laundry is a thing for women.

And now I will sit back and watch how many people get mad at me because they don't understand sarcasm.

[-] Goblin_Mode@ttrpg.network 22 points 9 months ago

And now I will sit back and watch how many people get mad at me because they don't understand sarcasm.

Really getting worked up over that imaginary person you created huh? Lol

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[-] Taniwha420@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

No. It's feminine because you put dirty things in it.

EDIT: I'm going to get lynched by the hyper vigilant with you. We're in this together now.

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[-] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 27 points 9 months ago

intentionally misreading as wholesome - the idea is to subvert the concept of gender.

"You'll never be a real woman!"

"Neither will the chair I'm sitting in but you keep calling it 'her' so maybe stfu."

[-] lugal@lemmy.world 26 points 9 months ago
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[-] Dasnap@lemmy.world 23 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

What exactly does gender achieve in a language? Is English missing out on any nuance? Is it literally thinking about nouns as male or female, or is it just a weird name for the concept? Who decides gender when a new noun is made? What about borrowed words from other languages? Do you sound stupid if you speak French without using it, or are you just a language hipster?

Language, dude...

[-] vsis@feddit.cl 34 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I'm not an expert. But I believe it is something to do with information redundancy.

If you mishear a word but surrounding words must match gender and number, you may reconstruct the misheard word.

As a native spanish speaker, I don't think of the actual sexuality of objects, it's just a characteristic of the word that should match other words in the sentence. For example the word screen (pantalla) is femenine, and the word monitor (monitor) is masculine. So when I see my monitor I don't think of an actual female or male object. But the nouns should match adjectives gender, so if someone says "broken monitor" (monitor roto) or "broken screen" (pantalla rota) I have this kind of redundancy if I misheard a word.

But I'm not an expert of linguistics. Don't quote me.

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[-] thisisbutaname@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 9 months ago

Speaking as a gendered language user (Italian) it is sometimes weird.

For example, car is feminine but our name for an off-road vehicle is masculine, as is the word for truck. Since you have to apply the gender of the noun to verbs, articles and adjectives, which one do you use when talking about your SUV? Feminine because it's a car or masculine because it's an offroader?

For borrowed words there's usually a consensus on gender that forms over time. Sometimes a borrowed word inherits its gender from the translation of that word that fell out of use. One example of this could be the word computer. An equivalent term exists in Italian (calcolatore) which fell out of use but gave it a definite gender, masculine.

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[-] TheCheddarCheese@lemmy.world 22 points 9 months ago

We also don't have 13 different words for I (glances at Japan)

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[-] JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world 22 points 9 months ago

Germany has three genders lmao

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[-] sebinspace@lemmy.world 21 points 9 months ago
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[-] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 9 months ago

Cough, Though, Through (+ Threw), Thorough, Rough, Thought, Ought, Tough.

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[-] morgan_423@lemmy.world 21 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Non-neutral nouns have always struck me as odd. They provide no info gain whatsoever outside of actually providing a gender if you're referring to a person or animal (for example, in Spanish, gato -> male cat, gata -> female cat). And in those situations, a short sentence can provide instant clarification if needed in a non-gendered language like English.

It's a language feature built to be helpful in one use case, whilst simultaneously being worse in about a bazillion others. It's a very odd choice.

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[-] Tukma@lemmy.cafe 19 points 9 months ago

I don't know about French, but in Spanish is feminine.

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[-] Asudox@lemmy.world 19 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

is that like how you have to memorize every single articels (der, die, das) for every word in german?

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[-] spirinolas@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago

Uh? I'm Portuguese and it works in the same in my language. I don't know what the big deal is. You get the gender by the arti...

Oh...

[-] Aurelius@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago

Say what you will, exam nightmares are real

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this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
1423 points (97.3% liked)

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