Are there any tricks to German nouns? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Are there any tricks to German nouns?
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translator2
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Message 17 of 29

21 May 2012 at 3:20pm | IP Logged

Seriously though, here is some good advice from another thread:

Lucky Charms wrote:

Memorizing the word together with the article as if it were one word didn't work for
me, and it made me less likely to recognize the word without the article.

On another thread a while back, a poster suggested imagining the noun connected with
fire (for masculine words), a girl (feminine), or water (neuter). This suggestion has
worked great for me. I've tweaked it a bit by imagining flowers for feminine words
(because das Mädchen is actually neuter!) and beer for neuter words (because that
creates a more colorful mental image than water). For example, I remembered that "die
Zukunft" is feminine by imagining that in the future, hippies would take over the world
and plant so many flowers everywhere that everything is covered with them. I remembered
that "das Ende" is neuter by imagining a drunk who kept drinking beer until his dying
day. I remembered that "der Einfluß" is masculine because before the Vietnam war,
Buddhist monks would set themselves on fire to protest the discriminatory practices of
the Catholic government - they were hoping to make an "influence" on the political
situation. The stories may be dumb, but they're impossible to forget. I even add a
little image of a flower, beer, or fire to the back of my Anki cards to reinforce
the story. (By the way, I use the same system for Spanish, but with different images in
order to avoid confusing the genders between the languages. For masculine words I use
"el perro" and for feminine words I use "la fiesta", imagining a party with a lot of
women.)

The great thing about German is that there are a lot of compound words built from
easily identifiable roots and affixes. This means that over time, you'll have to put
less and less effort into memorizing the gender of new words: if you know "das Ende",
you know "das Wochenende", and if you know "der Fluß" you know "der Einfluß", "der
Überfluß", etc.

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Pisces
Bilingual Pentaglot
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Finland
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Message 18 of 29

21 May 2012 at 5:10pm | IP Logged

translator2 wrote:

Seriously though, here is some good advice from another thread:

Lucky Charms wrote:

...

Yes, that is good advice. I hadn't read that post, but it's something like what I meant.

The problem with 'learn the gender with the noun' is that, actually, it's harder to learn the gender than the noun itself. I think native speakers don't really realize that.
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LebensForm
Senior Member
Austria
Joined 5041 days ago
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Studies: German

Message 19 of 29

21 May 2012 at 7:01pm | IP Logged

Everyone has given great advice on this.
I also agree that making charts and color coding them helps a lot.
This is what I did to make an adj gender/case ending chart.
And I also agree with the Pisces, that it is harder to memorize the
gender than the noun, I may know the word, but what gender is it?
I usually go with der because apparently 39% of German nouns
are masculine, 34% Feminine and 27% are Neutral.
I am sure you thought of this already but think of plural
as a 4th gender, since it takes somewhat different endings,
especially in the dative and genitive.

Otherwise, good luck with German, it is fun once
you get im a bit deeper, I think xD
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IronFist
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Studies: Japanese, Korean

Message 20 of 29

21 May 2012 at 7:30pm | IP Logged

boudouris wrote:

This isn't a trick with the language itself, but one of the most helpful things for me
has been to listen to and learn the lyrics to songs (or poems or sayings) in German. A
lot of time the gender has a big influence on the flow of the song like when a masculine
indefinite article is used vs a neuter one in the accusative (einen vs ein). So if you're
not sure of the gender you can think back to a song that has the word and it's like the
information is stored there for you, if you can remember things like that well.

I am a big fan of the first 4 or 5 Rammstein albums. Many times I will see a German noun and be like "I know what that means cuz it's in (some Rammstein song)!"
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IronFist
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Message 21 of 29

21 May 2012 at 7:30pm | IP Logged

translator2 wrote:

Just use the masculine gender for all nouns. If anyone complains just tell them you don't believe in studying grammar and call them a bully, a hater or an elitist.

Edited by IronFist on 21 May 2012 at 7:31pm
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Josquin
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Germany
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Message 22 of 29

21 May 2012 at 7:55pm | IP Logged

Pisces wrote:

The problem with 'learn the gender with the noun' is that, actually, it's harder to learn the gender than the noun itself. I think native speakers don't really realize that.

I have the same problem as you when I learn French, Swedish or (to a lesser extent) Icelandic and Russian nouns, and I particularly tend to confuse genders in French. I just don't know any better advice than learning the article with the noun. Of course, there are some rules, but I have always found it easier to learn the article than learning all the rules.

Edited by Josquin on 21 May 2012 at 7:58pm
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Sunja
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Germany
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Message 23 of 29

21 May 2012 at 9:40pm | IP Logged

Josquin wrote:

(...)I particularly tend to confuse genders in French(...)

I use a Duden to help me find what words are "false friends". It's best if I can find a pattern to help me remember them. It's not always this way but "die"-words often have an "e"-sound on the end which forms a short string of syllables from the beginning of "die" to the end of "e".

die Maske, die Schokolade, die Gruppe, die Kontrolle, die Garage

The French equivalents are different (masc.) and with the exception of "chocolat" these words end in a consonant sound

le masque, le chocolat, le groupe, le contrôle, le garage

Of course sometimes there's no pattern in sight, especially when it comes to the abstract words or the words where you have to ask yourself, "okay, why is opéra masculine in French??" I always have to work a little bit longer on those..^^
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tbone
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Message 24 of 29

21 May 2012 at 11:18pm | IP Logged

If you're skipping the gender, that's like always using the infinitive form of a verb. Kind of annoying to listen to.

Always say the gender with the word. It gets easier when you just relax and realize there's no escaping it.

Here's a trick I used to use: Germans already know all this stuff! Keep your ears open and you can start using the
correct gender in the middle of a conversation.

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