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Gender Congruency in Romance Languages

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22 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3  Next >>
vikramkr
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 Message 1 of 22
21 March 2010 at 7:22am | IP Logged 
When unsure of the gender of a particular French word, I used to resort to using the gender of that word in
Portuguese, hoping it would be the same; I was told by a French speaker that the genders of words in French and
Spanish are similar. However, I quickly found this to be inaccurate, and have discontinued the practice.

Example: while l'immigration/a imigração share a feminine gender, la voiture/o carro don't share the same gender.

Does anyone have any insight regarding the gender of words in Romance languages, and/or any tricks to help one
remember them?
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tractor
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 Message 2 of 22
21 March 2010 at 8:58am | IP Logged 
La voiture and o carro are completely different words with nothing in common except that they both
mean car. Your rule of thumb will only work with pairs of related words; i.e. words that look similar and share the
same origin: l'immigration and a imigração; la rue and a rua.

Edited by tractor on 21 March 2010 at 8:59am

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MäcØSŸ
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 Message 3 of 22
21 March 2010 at 9:11am | IP Logged 
vikramkr wrote:

Example: while l'immigration/a imigração share a feminine gender, la voiture/o carro don't share the same gender.


That’s because immigration and imigração are cognates, while voiture and carro are not. Unfortunately in these
cases you have to learn genders as you would do with non-romance languages.
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vikramkr
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 Message 4 of 22
21 March 2010 at 5:48pm | IP Logged 
Forgive me, that was a poor example! Thanks for the clarification, both of you!

Edited by vikramkr on 21 March 2010 at 7:17pm

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elvisrules
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 Message 5 of 22
21 March 2010 at 6:17pm | IP Logged 
A French cognate would be "le char".
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Arekkusu
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 Message 6 of 22
21 March 2010 at 6:50pm | IP Logged 
elvisrules wrote:
A French cognate would be "le char".

Which we use in Québec French to mean car.

To push the reflection further, automovil in Spanish is masculine while it's feminine in
French,
but it's because it started out as an adjective to coche (m) and voiture (f).

Edited by Arekkusu on 21 March 2010 at 6:50pm

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Cainntear
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 Message 7 of 22
21 March 2010 at 6:53pm | IP Logged 
Of course, even cognates can diverge. My general rule with guessing in Romance languages is if I know that something's the same in two of them, it's likely it'll be the same in a third.

The other rule of thumb is the general "irregular" one.

Only the most common verbs in any language are irregular, because you have to use them frequently to remember the irregularity.
This generally holds for changes in vocabulary within language families -- the ones that change most are the most common ones -- French has "parlar", Spanish "hablar" and Portuguese "falar", but we have "l(a) immigration", "la inmigración" and "a imigração" which differ only in terms of an entirely regular and predictable sound change.
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Arekkusu
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 Message 8 of 22
21 March 2010 at 6:57pm | IP Logged 
La fleur vs. il fiore is another example of divergence. That one is a mystery to me.


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