Sam
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One thing I've never understood, is that a lot of languages have masculine and feminine phrases/words (whereas English doesn't). Even German does (along with a 'neuter') and German & English are supposed to be part of the same family of languages.
Anyone that speaks fluently in other languages, can you please explain to me WHY some of these languages have masculine/feminine phrases and words? This is something I could never really get my head around or understand why - even at school when we had to learn French (I say "learn" quite loosely as our teacher was shit) they couldn't explain this to us?
I really want to learn more languages but I struggled with French in school (despite my mum being fluent in it and talking to me partly in French at home) for the above reason so I feel this might be a big stumbling block for me. 
[Edited on 03-02-2012 by Sam]
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Whittie
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Welsh.
None of the male / female shit there though.
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Daveskater
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Some languages don't have any gender distinction at all, like a lady I work with who comes from Iran said that in Persian there are no words for 'him', 'her', 'his' etc, only 'they' or 'them' etc.
Numberwang!
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brebaz
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thats coz they all wear dresses so you cant tell if its a him or her 
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3CorsaMeal
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Condom & Femidom
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Sunz
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Registered: 12th Jan 07
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I don't think there is a known reason for masculine and feminine uses such as in French.
My girlfriend is French and wants me to learn to speak it better but like stated there is tons of gender words for objects, just doesn't make any sense, would be like saying an item has a gender, like a spoon would have a gender.
Le garçon = The boy - La fille - The daughter - so 2 words for "The" based on gender, so confusing !
Is good they are learning English in Europe 
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adiohead
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Registered: 28th Sep 01
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Actor, actress.
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Whittie
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Location: North Wales Drives: BMW, Corsa & Fiat
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Waiter, Waitress.
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stan_the_man
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Registered: 14th Feb 07
Location: Perth, Western Australia
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I know what you mean! I want to but a slice of pizza, not fuck it!
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ed
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That's not really what the threads about, it's about words that we'd assume are gender neutral having gender - see Sunz' post.
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Balling
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In English you have 'a' or 'an' as well as two different pronunciations of 'the', all depending on the starting letter/sound of the following word.
In other languages, there is no rule of thumb as whether to use the equivalent of 'a' or 'an', it just depends on the gender of the word, which you will have to know and can not guess.
To make it even more difficult a lot of languages, like German, have even more different variations of 'the', depending on gender and other circumstances.
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Balling
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quote:
Originally posted by Sunz
Is good they are learning English in Europe
England is in Europe, so yeah... they are learning English in Europe!
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stan_the_man
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Location: Perth, Western Australia
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English is pretty strange when you actually boil it down too. The word 'pretty' itself can be used in two completely different ways.
Alot of words have two different meanings etc.
It's when you try and learn another language you start to notice how strange your own is!
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Sunz
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Location: SE England
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Is good English is widely taught throughout europe and is becomming the language of Europe ! (That better for you sir)
I don't see the Uk is europe, we're more of an outsider, just thinking it's cool to be apart of europe 
Anyway, topic at hand. 
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John
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Your English is terrible, you should concentrate on that before French.
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Balling
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quote:
Originally posted by stan_the_man
English is pretty strange when you actually boil it down too. The word 'pretty' itself can be used in two completely different ways.
Alot of words have two different meanings etc.
I think that's common for all languages. We have a lot of pointless stuff in our language too...
I Danish, the words for 'apparently' [vist] and 'shown' [vist] are spelled the same, but pronounced differently. However, the word 'apparently' [vist] is pronounced the same as 'known' [vidst] but spelled differently...
Hence online translaters almost never getting Danish quite right...
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Balling
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quote:
Originally posted by Sunz
I don't see the Uk is europe, we're more of an outsider, just thinking it's cool to be apart of europe
So, just out of curiosity, which continent DO you see the UK as part of?
And do you really think this is a matter of personal opinion, whether a country is or isn't part of a certain continent?
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Dom
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Registered: 13th Sep 03
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quote:
Originally posted by Balling
quote:
Originally posted by stan_the_man
English is pretty strange when you actually boil it down too. The word 'pretty' itself can be used in two completely different ways.
Alot of words have two different meanings etc.
I think that's common for all languages. We have a lot of pointless stuff in our language too...
I Danish, the words for 'apparently' [vist] and 'shown' [vist] are spelled the same, but pronounced differently. However, the word 'apparently' [vist] is pronounced the same as 'known' [vidst] but spelled differently...
Hence online translaters almost never getting Danish quite right...
Heteronym's (words spelt the same, pronounced differently/different meanings) generally makes learning English reasonably difficult, although as you say they are present in a lot of languages. Also doesn't help that a lot of English words aren't spelt phonetically like American-English.
Tbf I wish they would push languages more in education as majority of Europe at least speak two languages, usually more, and it makes us look like louts (although granted it's usually native and English).
Was pretty amazed when a Belgium friend said he could speak 5 languages (French, German, Dutch, Flemish, English) fluently and Spanish reasonably well; apparently it's the norm there 
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Sam
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French lessons at school were pretty rubbish. They also had the option of German but these only seemed to be available to a select few for some reason.
Shitty England.
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