|
 |
How to memorize noun genders | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5685 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes  Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 33 of 51 13 July 2010 at 9:38am | IP Logged | ||
|
Aye, I tend to forget how difficult some Indo-European languages are... it's been a while
since I studied French, though I do know that gender in nouns is the most frustrating thing for me in that language, way more than conjugation or whatnot. But then, I almost thought it was cause I was transgender: gender in any sense just doesn't qualify as human/earth logic in my brain... Now I'm dealing with bantu noun classes, which is a li'l similar to gender I guess, only lots more: Nguni languages 13... But those at least make sense to me... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| astein Pentaglot Groupie Germany Joined 5049 days ago 80 posts - 134 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, French, Mandarin Studies: Russian, Dutch | Message 34 of 51 13 July 2010 at 9:59am | IP Logged | ||
|
Yeah, when the plural is there, by all means use it. I'm just saying that once you get above 10-15000 words, it really isn't that helpful anymore, especially if you have to search specially for the plural form.
It seems confusing with all the changes, but you do develop a good feeling for which changes go with which nouns. They tend to go with certain patterns and spellings, and you will get a good grip on the rules after you learn a few thousand more words. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5162 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 35 of 51 14 July 2010 at 6:01pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I've never used any mnemonics to remember gender in any of the languages I studied. The best way, in my opinion, is to simply use the word with a verb or in a noun phrase so that articles, adjectives or declension endings show you the gender. This also works when there are no articles.
Incidently, unless someone can prove me wrong, all -- or virtually all, in any case -- genders come from word endings, which may or may not have completely eroded over time. For that reason, even when the endings have disappeared, there are often other slight clues at the end of the word that can give you a hint about a word's gender. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5564 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 36 of 51 24 July 2010 at 6:03am | IP Logged | ||
|
I had a lot of trouble with this, because I stressed about it. I have seen several nice ideas, all of which have one essential thing in common, let me share a few (with Spanish in mind). Associate the gender with a masculine or feminine image (Gruneberg) Associate the gender with a location (Domonic O Brian) Learn masculine nouns in a low-pitched voice, and feminine in a high-pitched voice or v.v. Associate one gender with left and another with right Associate the gender with a colour (e.g. pink for feminine and blue for masculine) also the traditional method of learning nouns with the article Many people find the traditional method difficult, but it is just a mental block, as you can easily see by memorizing the following words (please take capitalisation to represent an accent):- cállela, cajonel parédla rincónel (to see what you just learned see bottom of post). What these all have in common is that they force you to notice the distinction in the first place and to somehow sense a distinction, why ON EARTH would this be necessary? Well, when we are reading or listening we are trying to understand, and in speaking we are trying to communicate ideas (many of us are so conditioned to try to write correctly that writing can be a big help in language learning b.t.w.) and in German and the Romance Languages gender simply does not make a difference, so it is hard to force our brain to notice it. This brings me to my own preferred trick. I said that in [Spanish] gender does not make a difference to understanding and making yourself understood, but that's not QUITE true! There are a group of words in Spanish which are IDENTICAL except for gender, yet have totally different meanings! These are usually reserved for intermediate students but they should be taught early, THEY ARE YOUR FRIENDS. Some examples:- el capital (Capital in the financial sense) la capital (Washington, London, Madrid, Mexico City etc) el cometa (comet) la cometa (kite) el corte (cut- both literal and electricity) la corte (court) la orden (order as in telling someone what to do) el orden (order as in alphabetical or similar) el frente (front) la frente (forehead) el pez (fish) la pez (tar) el pendiente (earring) la pendiente (slope) You can easily find about 15-20 of these (more if you are willing to learn obscure words- which I don't recommend) in a good grammar book or by googling (what I just did). Learn them, use them in sentences, take your time until you really know them well (2 to 4 weeks to learn 15 words well is within anybody's grasp!), and you will find that the difference in gender is starting to MEAN something to you. Next you press this home by looking at groups in Spanish where there is a consistent pattern of meaning. For instance a very common pattern (doesn't work for all fruits) in Spanish follows (c.f. la fruta and el árbol) la cereza (cherry); cerezo (cherry tree) la naranja (orange); el naranjo (orange tree) la manzana (apple); el manzano (apple tree) this is just one pattern of many cases of similar meanings but one word ends in o and is masculine, and the other ends in a and is feminine- the rule of thumb that o = masculine and a (other than ma) = feminine is an extremely good one, but you will find exceptions. el charco (puddle); la charca (pond) el barco (boat); la barca (rowing boat) el cubo (bucket); la cuba (barrel) and many more you don't need to memorise these unless you want to, just spend some time exploring them and using them in sentences while your sense of a distinction between masculine and feminine nouns starts to solidify. Finally, go back to learning Spanish (without worrying particularly about gender) and, when you brain is ready you will find that when you come across new words you start more and more to notice their gender (take pleasure in this!), and a bit later you'll find yourself remembering them too (the more you guess genders and the less you stress when you occasionally get one wrong then the quicker you will go from noticing to remembering) all in a completely natural fashion without any forcing. Finally when you occasionally come across a noun which contradicts what your brain expects (la mano = hand or la trama = plot, for instance) notice your surprise and spend a bit of time playing with it until it FEELS right again (notice I did NOT say until you have learnt it! And don't worry, nearly all such nouns are common ones, once your vocabulary reaches the intermediate level you will very rarely meet such rebels). I guarantee this method will work for Spanish, and am pretty sure it could be adapted for other Romance Languages...beyond that I reckon it'd work, certainly worth a try. * From top of post: you just learnt la calle, la pared, el rincón, and el cajón. Edited by Random review on 25 July 2010 at 1:14am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5234 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 37 of 51 24 July 2010 at 11:10am | IP Logged | ||
You've swopped them. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5564 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 38 of 51 25 July 2010 at 1:01am | IP Logged | ||
|
"la pez (fish)
el pez (tar) You've swopped them" So I did. I also spelled really badly. The perils of writing at 5am. I thought I checked all this over before posting, but clearly my changes weren't saved. Of course fish is EL pez or we would eat pescada ha ha. Thanks. Just edited the above post. Edited by Random review on 25 July 2010 at 1:11am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| michaelmichael Senior Member Canada Joined 5038 days ago 167 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 39 of 51 04 August 2010 at 6:13am | IP Logged | ||
|
Meaning of the noun and the ending of the nouns.
French is not so bad, double constant and an e at the end has a very high chance of being feminine (also ion, or ison, té). Also the exceptions will stand out like a sore thumb, (le verre). i always pay attention to the endings when i use my flash cards. Some categories are nice to know, like all countries that don't end in e are masculine. (and if it wasn't for le mexique, all countries with an e are feminine). Just remember if you are learning french, there are nouns that can be both masculine and feminine depending on sex (enfant), there are nouns that change meaning depending on gender (rarer, le livre, la livre for example), and there are some nouns that have the same gender regardless of sex (la victime). Also, there is gens, which is just weird. Its gender depends on where it is relative to its adjective :/. hmm, masculine when it's in the front and feminine in the back, i will let the people on this thread read into that. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5564 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 40 of 51 04 August 2010 at 11:08am | IP Logged | ||
|
For weird it's hard to top arte in Spanish, which is feminine in the plural, but usually masculine in the singular!
Another interesting one is bebé, which is always masculine in Spain but seems to change gender to reflect the baby's sex in Latin America (at least to judge by L.AM TV). Additionally there are a handful of words that vary in gender from place to place e.g. sartén (la sartén in Spain). Slightly off topic there is the Spanish word for romania, which is rumania in my (excellent) dictionary, yet most people in Spain say rumanía!! Can't think why this is, but to confirm my impression in the first Harry Potter film Romania was dubbed rumania in the L.Am version, and rumanía in the Spanish version. But then I suppose it's no different to yanks saying PORtuguese and brits saying portuGUESE ha ha. Edited by Random review on 04 August 2010 at 11:11am 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
