# Mädchen



## Cüneyt

Hello
Why is "Mädchen" neuter? It's confusing.
Are there any rules how to keep the gender in mind?


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## Frieder

I know it's confusing, but the suffix "-chen" makes it automatically a neuter, 
as well as any word ending with "-lein".

It derives from "Magd", wich is female of course.
The diminutive form is "Mägdelein" or "Mägdchen",
wich are neuter because of the suffixes.

"Mägdchen" is a bit hard to pronounce, so it was 
slurred to "Mädchen".


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## Hutschi

The form is a diminutive, and all diminutive forms in German are neuter.
There is a difference between gender and (natural) sex in German grammar.

Note also, that the pronoun for "das Mädchen" is usually "es".
(There are some exceptions in newer time for usage of "sie" in certain conditions to indcate the natural sex.)


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## Cüneyt

And why does German use grammatical gender?
We haven't articles in Turkish, especially no gender. I don't get the advantages of using gender and the gender in German seems to be random. It doesn't make sense, that an apple is masculine and a strawberry feminine. For me it's both neuter.


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## Hutschi

Consider Gender just as grammatical group. It has a long history, and there are only for some Words clear rules to which gender they belong. Gender is not directly related to sexus. It groups the nouns, pronouns and articles to declination groups. In russian language it also classifies verbs.
Note that der Apfel is male only if it just an apple. If it is a piece of apple, it is neutre - "das Apfelstück". And the skin is "die Apfelschale".
There is no general rule.
But for some groups there is:
Examples:
xxxierung is female: die Justierung, die Schmierung
xxxtion is female: die Portion, die Operation, die Nation
xxxlein/xxxchen: Diminutive is always neutre: das Kindlein, das Äpfelchen, das Häuschen, das Häuslein ...
xxxin: In professions and similar properties always female - die Autorin, die Meisterin, die Schöffin
---
Note that even the native speakers of German are joking about the gender system.


Indeed it adds some redundancy and improves the information transfer.


< ... >


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## Frieder

Cüneyt said:
			
		

> And why does German use grammatical gender?



Why does any language indeed use anything? Languages have 
grown out of other languages for ages and they are not subject 
to any logic. 

Why does Turkish use suffixes instead of separate words? 
Why is "Mädchen" neuter?
Why is French such a nasal language?

There are no logical reasons for this, only historical ones.
So, if you  want to get to terms with a foreign language, forget 
about logic, don't ask for reasons, just sit down and drill - there's 
no other way, unfortunately.


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## Cüneyt

Frieder said:


> Why does Turkish use suffixes instead of separate words?
> Why is "Mädchen" neuter?
> Why is French such a nasal language?


The agglutinating in Turkish makes sense. It's a way to transport information, but if you drop the gender in German you don't lose any information. The German case system is hard to learn, but it makes sense. It's a difference if I say "Ich fahre auf die Straße" or "Ich fahre auf der Straße" or if I say "Der Hund beißt die Katze" or "Den Hund beißt die Katze", for instance.
It doesn't make a difference in information if I say "Ich esse die Kirsche", "Ich esse das Kirsche" or "Ich esse der Kirsche".


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## Hutschi

Hi, 
you loose lots of information.
The gender helps to avoid synonymes in many cases.
It is a big difference whether you say:
_Der Hund beißt die Katze. = the dog bites the cat
_or_
Die Hund beißt die Katze. = A woman named "Hund" bites the dog._ (Marked slightly degorative.

The gender system with declination additionally helps to structure the sentence.
As I already wrote, it has some redundancy. The redundancy improves security of information transfer.
So the agreement between gender of articles and nouns makes sense.
---


And don't forget the beauty of a language.
In all languages there is a development, too. German language includes, as other languages, too, lots of old structures and relicts of earlier systems. The most things considered as not necessary were omitted during time.

So we do not know exactly what is the source of the gender system, why - die Brust is female, independend on wether it belongs to man or women.

English had the same system about 1000 years ago, but omitted it almost completely (I think there are exceptions - but do not know exactly which ones.)
But English developed other systems and has basically the same complexity. I think, it is not easier to learn English than German - overall.
_
It doesn't make a difference in information if I say "Ich esse die Kirsche", "Ich esse das Kirsche" or "Ich esse der Kirsche"._
I agree for this example - if you only consider it from the words and not the information transfer.


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## bearded

Cüneyt said:


> And why does German use grammatical gender?
> We haven't articles in Turkish, especially no gender. I don't get the advantages of using gender and the gender in German seems to be random. It doesn't make sense, that an apple is masculine and a strawberry feminine. For me it's both neuter.


Hello Cüneyt
We all consider our own mother-tongue as being the most logical, and other languages as less logical. You find it strange that in German there are genders, because you are a native speaker of a language where genders do not exist. I am Italian, and in my language there are only two genders, all nouns are either masculine or feminine, so I find the German neuter gender a bit 'strange'.
But if in a language there are genders, the world appears more 'colourful', as it is inhabited by masculine, feminine (and neuter) objects and creatures whose names become easier to keep in mind. You should not think that languages are made according to 'advantageous' or 'disadvantageous' features that can be eliminated if they don't suit your criteria...
I fully agree with what Frieder said in his post #6. In particular, you should not think that some languages are more 'logical' than others. The English language, that you will find logical since it has no genders, used to have genders until some centuries ago, and, before genders disappeared, English enjoyed their presence during many years.


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## Cüneyt

Thank you for your answers. That was very helpful.



bearded man said:


> Hello Cüneyt
> We all consider our own mother-tongue as being the most logical, and other languages as less logical. You find it strange that in German there are genders, because you are a native speaker of a language where genders do not exist. I am Italian, and in my language there are only two genders, all nouns are either masculine or feminine, so I find the German neuter gender a bit 'strange'.



I think, that Turkish is very logical compared to other languages. For example the new Turkish writing was being developed for three month and introduced in 1928. Therefore you almost write like you speak.
I didn't know that Italian has genders as well. I only knew it from German.



> The English language, that you will find logical


I don't find English logical. The pronunciation is awful.
And it was hard for me to learn English too. I don't know how good my English is, but I'm trying to do my best, that you understand me.


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## Schimmelreiter

Cüneyt said:


> the new Turkish writing was being developed for three month and introduced in 1928. Therefore you almost write like you speak.


Going from Arabic to Latin characters offered a unique chance for logic to prevail. One that English and German have to do without in their attempts at spelling reform.


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## bearded

Dear Cüneyt,
you say Turkish is more logical than other languages. Now that seems a 'nationalistic' statement, and to judge logicity of a language is a very difficult enterprise. Besides, languages are different from mathematics where only logic matters..If you study German more deeply, you will find that it is very logical in its internal grammatical system. I know 4 languages rather well and 2 less well, and I assure you that each of them possesses its own 'logic'.As concerns genders in German, please note that Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, the Scandinavian languages and many others- they all have genders. Are they all 'less logical?' Even Arabic, from which Turkish borrowed many words, has a masculine and a feminine gender: sun = shams (feminine), moon = qamar (masculine).


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## L'irlandais

Cüneyt said:


> ...I think, that Turkish is very logical compared to other languages. ...


Not surprising since it's your mother tongue.





Cüneyt said:


> I don't find English logical. The pronunciation is awful...


Would it surprise you that I don't agree with you on that point.  Again not all that surprising since English is my mother-tongue.  Not sure why you link pronunciation to logic, I don't see the connection.
As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe might have put it :_ " Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiss nichts von seiner eigenen."_


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## Hochschule

from my understanding,

foreign words are neutral (Auto, Foto) and the plural they append -s.

-chen is neutral (the plural usually stays the same)
-lein is neutral
-um is neutral (but except aum things such as Baum and Raum)
-ment is neutral
-o is neutral


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## sankai

Cüneyt said:


> I think, that Turkish is very logical compared to other languages.
> [...]
> I don't find English logical. The pronunciation is awful.


I don't know about Turkish, but I started learning Japanese and I must say it's one of the most logical languages I have seen yet. Altough when I hear "logical" in connection with a language, then I automatically think of the grammar and the structure of the sentences instead of the pronounciation and the orthography. In a matter of grammar English is quite logical, but I agree that the pronounciation is awful as there are big differences in American English and British English (and all the other English that exists) 



> I didn't know that Italian has genders as well. I only knew it from German.


Yes it does. In fact most (if not all) Latin languages as Portuguese, Spanish, French etc. have genders, though mostly only two. 



> And it was hard for me to learn English too. I don't know how good my English is, but I'm trying to do my best, that you understand me.


Don't worry, you're not the only one who's having problem learning other languages. In fact I don't know anyone who has no difficulties learning a new language (though I once have seen a guy in TV who learned a language in a week.. Not perfectly, but he could communicate)
And it's worth it. Actually I think your English is really good 


back to the main subject: Frieder explained it pretty well in post #2.


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## berndf

L'irlandais said:


> Not sure why you link pronunciation to logic, I don't see the connection.


He certainly meant the the correspondence between spelling and pronunciation, and we all know he's got a point there.


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## L'irlandais

Does that mean you all feel German pronunciation is entirely logical? 
More logical that BrE perhaps, but tricky enough for non-native speakers to be daunted by the sheer number of exceptions to the "logical" rules.


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## berndf

L'irlandais said:


> Does that mean you all feel German pronunciation is entirely logical?


No, never said anything of the sort.


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## sankai

L'irlandais said:


> Does that mean you all feel German pronunciation is entirely logical?
> More logical that BrE perhaps, but tricky enough for non-native speakers to be daunted by the sheer number of exceptions to the "logical" rules.



I think it's quite logical, but not entirely.. 
But actually the only languages I've learned a few words and you just learned "this sign is pronounced like this, and only like this" were croatian and russian by now.. But since I only saw a few words I'm not even sure about it!


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## Cüneyt

L'irlandais said:


> Would it surprise you that I don't agree with you on that point.  Again not all that surprising since English is my mother-tongue.  Not sure why you link pronunciation to logic, I don't see the connection.
> As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe might have put it :_ " Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiss nichts von seiner eigenen."_



I like English (and German) but you have to admit, that your spelling has nothing to do with your pronunciation. You also could use Chinese letters. It doesn't make a difference.


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## Dan2

Hochschule said:


> from my understanding,
> 
> foreign words are neutral (Auto, Foto)


That's not true in general: die Saison, die Chance, der Computer, der (Hyper)link, die Internet-Domain, der Jazz, and many others.

(For the grammatical gender, ("sächlich" in German), I would say neuter, not neutral.)


Hutschi said:


> Consider Gender just as grammatical group....
> There is no general rule.
> But for some groups there is:
> Examples:
> xxxierung is female: die Justierung, die Schmierung


Only "-ierung"?  Aren't words in -ung female in general? (As long as -ung is a morpheme (Übung, Achtung...), which it almost always is in final position.)  This brings thousands of words under this rule. (The morpheme requirement protects against what would otherwise be exceptions, like "Sprung", "Jung", and "Dung". But I don't think there are too many of these.)


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## Hutschi

I think, you are right, but I gave an example where the essential part is a morphem. So I did not want to male it complicate with "Dung" ("Dung" is a word)  vs. Düngung (Düngung= düngen -> Düngung)" - for example.
There are more groups, it was just one example.

Other Examples for such morphems are "ion" and "ei"

die Nation, die Explosion - but das Ion.
Die Slowakei - but das Ei.


Ship names and spaceship names are female: die "Enterprize", die "Dresden", die "Anton". The gender of the word itself does not matter.

I do not have a systematic table for such words at the moment.


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## elitaliano

Hello
I have to write a text in German where a girl is mentioned many times.
I know that the word Mädchen is neuter, so its correct pronoun is "es".
My question is: should I use in the whole text the pronoun "es" or it is better/right to change to "sie"?

For instance:
"Ich habe ein Mädchen kennengelernt. *Es* ist jung. *Es* wohnt in Berlin, *Es* hat eine Schwester. *Es* heisst Verena. *Es*...."

Don't these many "es" sound bad?

Danke für Ihre Hilfe.


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## Frieder

elitaliano said:


> Don't these many "es" sound bad?


Yes , they do. My attempt:

„Ich habe ein Mädchen kennengelernt. *Sie* ist jung, wohnt in Berlin, hat eine Schwester, ... und heisst Verena.”

Despite _Mädchen _being neuter I'd prefer to continue in female gender here.


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## elitaliano

Danke für Deine Erklärung.
So, ich werde vom zweiten Satz "es" mit "sie" ändern.


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