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German: Formal Vs. Informal | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| GREGORG4000 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5522 days ago 307 posts - 479 votes  Speaks: English*, Finnish Studies: Japanese, Korean, Amharic, French | Message 17 of 24 14 June 2010 at 3:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think it just means "get the right gender for pronouns, you don't say "it" for everything that's not a human like you do in English". The sentence is a bit weird for it though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Ubik Senior Member United States ubykh.wordpress.com/ Joined 5315 days ago 147 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Arabic (Egyptian), German, Spanish | Message 18 of 24 14 June 2010 at 3:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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What it looks like to me though is HE was a good mother and SHE was a good father....
Thats what Im trying to figure out... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5351 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 19 of 24 14 June 2010 at 4:29am | IP Logged | ||||||||
That is a weird example for me (especially out of context), but your understanding is correct. I assume that an earlier part of the writing could be as follows:
When Janine was a child, she watched a lot of TV. Because her mother was seldom at home, it (the TV) was a good mother. Since Television (der Fernseher) is a masculine word, you use the pronoun "er", and with a word which is feminine in gender, you would use "sie". Weird example I think, but you got it. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5319 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 20 of 24 14 June 2010 at 8:45am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I basically agree with your interpretation, however, the first sentence of your example is idiomatically wrong.
It should read:
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| Ubik Senior Member United States ubykh.wordpress.com/ Joined 5315 days ago 147 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Arabic (Egyptian), German, Spanish | Message 21 of 24 14 June 2010 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I would agree with that, but there were no preceding sentences nor was it quoted from some literary source. Also, the TV is only one gender, but there are two (seemingly mismatched to what theyre supposed to match) in the sentence. What would explain 'er' before Mutter and 'sie' before Vater. Is the book wrong? Is it just WAY simple and Im an idiot?...
When I get home (which will be very late tonight) Ill look and see if there are any other clues that might help my helpers LOL. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5351 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 22 of 24 15 June 2010 at 1:56am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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@Doitsujin: Thanks for the correction. Always glad for a native speaker to point these things out, then they usually stick in my head. :)
@Ubik: I think that your book may be just making an extravagant example, just as a point to show that grammatical gender is unrelated to biological sex. The sentence could say, for example, The guitar was a good father and TV was a good mother, and whereas in English we would replace the nouns and just say "it" or "he/she" depending on whether we referred to mother or father, the pronouns used in German depend on the gender of the noun. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Ubik Senior Member United States ubykh.wordpress.com/ Joined 5315 days ago 147 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Arabic (Egyptian), German, Spanish | Message 23 of 24 15 June 2010 at 7:48am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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@tracker...OK I think I get that now. youre saying that theyre assuming that in the
previous imaginary sentence other nouns were mentioned and so this sentence is referencing them to make their point? If thats the case, then fine, but one would think they'd put that sentence before it to show that. I woulda stared at that forever without getting it. I DID get the concept, but I didnt "engrave it onto my brain" per se because I was afraid that I *was* misunderstanding it... yikes thank you! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5351 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 24 of 24 15 June 2010 at 3:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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