Irritating rules about other languages (light hearted) when learning them/using them

[profpoopsnagle]

I have been learning German for a few months, I always thought that I was rubbish at learning languages but I am enjoying it more than I did at school.

The whole thing of masculine/feminine and neuter nouns is a minefield. You have to basically learn the Der/Die/Das with everything- there are sometimes clues but it's all a bit random.

But it's the case system does my head in.
I love the idea behind the logic, that in itself is very German and organised in a sentence. So that you can tell if an object is the subject or having an action applied to it. But... and this is the but, it only applies to the masculine nouns. So Der goes to Den, but Die stays as Die and Das stays as Das.

So, on the one hand, the Germans are saying this is really important and it means you can have 'fun' with the word order (although you actually can't that much because they have strict rules about that too), but it can't be that important if the majority of the nouns don't change.

And then, when you learn the dative (third case), the Der changes to a Dem, but the Die changes to a Der. Re-using a word! Why couldn't they have a Dez, or a Deg- something to differentiate it from the masculine?

I'm sure there are nuances with English for learners too- I'd like to hear them. What other rules in other languages make you completely baffled?

The subjunctive. I didn't even realize it existed in English and it's always said wrongly so when I came across it in A level French I was bamboozled!

Russian verbs of motion! You can't just "go" somewhere. The word depends on whether you walk, run, drive, fly etc to get to where you are going.

At university I was learning German and Spanish at the same time and when I was tired I would sometimes say the German equivalent of “I have 20 years” or when speaking Spanish I would put the verb at the and of a dependent clause. So the words would be right but the syntax would be mangled.

I thought I would try to learn Finnish once to impress a man I was sleeping with dating and when I found out it had 15 cases I lost interest.

Yes I knew that Finnish had an insane amount of cases. What on earth do they need that many for? I wonder if some are not used as much as others?

Russian verbs of motion sound fun!

I wonder what English grammar infuriates other learners.

I know lots of learners of English esp. from a non romance language background find articles really tricky, also the continuous aspect and phrasal verbs. I think phrasal verbs must be a nightmare to learn, there are so many and they are often very similar but with totally different meanings. And of course Engliah spelling is mental.

@BlackLambAndGreyFalcon

Russian verbs of motion! You can't just "go" somewhere. The word depends on whether you walk, run, drive, fly etc to get to where you are going.

This. I had a book of verbs of motion and it was 120 pages long (iirc, a long time ago now).

The cases were fine though, after a while they became logical and almost second nature. Then I started studying German and their cases were different! Eg. used dative when the Russians used genitive or whatever. Mind blown!

I've been learning Greek - a whole new alphabet including 2 's' - one you use in the middle of a word and one you use at the end :)

Also no infinitive form of any verb

Languages develop with use, logic has nothing to do with it.
The whole idea of linking subjective ideas about languages to equally subjective ideas of characteristics of speakers is at best lighthearted at worst dangerous.
Sorry but it needs to be said

I remember being taught that "aus bei mit nach seit von zu take the dative that is true".

In English we just have one word for "the", and I agree that it is a minefield when learning other languages. I don't know if anyone has read A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle, but he used to comment on some aspects of the French language where a word for part of the female anatomy was masculine, and a baby was masculine even if it was a girl.

I wonder who decided which words were masculine, feminine or neutral?

I'm not sure if I've got my facts straight exactly but DH had to learn a bit of Japanese for work and he said there are different forms of language that women and men speak..,,

Then, you have different words for "you" in French and German depending on how many people you are talking to and how familiar you are with them - tu/vous, du/sie.

In Spanish ( and other languages) the adjective such as the colour changes depending on how many of the item there are and even it’s sex.
So 1 female cat is a different black to 3 male cats. But if only one of the 3 cats is Male then it’s the same as 3 Male cats

different words for "you"

Like thou / you rather than singular / plural you?

@profpoopsnagle

Enjoy

@FinallyHere

different words for "you"

Like thou / you rather than singular / plural you?

Does anyone say thou these days?

@Hoppinggreen

In Spanish ( and other languages) the adjective such as the colour changes depending on how many of the item there are and even it’s sex. So 1 female cat is a different black to 3 male cats. But if only one of the 3 cats is Male then it’s the same as 3 Male cats

Not strictly true - just the endings in the word change (same in Italian). Also masculine always takes precedence (50 females plus one male take the masculine endings). There's a logic to it, much simpler than e.g. Russian verbs.

Well it is true isn’t it?
The word changes, even if it’s just the ending
And I literally said the masculine takes precedence
But thank you for clarifying

@happystory

I'm not sure if I've got my facts straight exactly but DH had to learn a bit of Japanese for work and he said there are different forms of language that women and men speak..,,

This is why I dropped Japanese.

It’s not that there are different forms for men and women, itks that you use different forms towards superiors and subordinates, and as a woman you are supposed to talk to men as your superiors.

Was NOT going to work for me in business meetings, so I just answered in English when they talked to me in Japanese. Then stopped practicing my Japanese, and now I’ve forgotten it all (this was decades ago, I hope things have moved on since then!)

The one that annoys me is that in the three gendered languages I speak, the genders are different for the same thing, sometimes with the same word (or almost) for the thing itself!

The Russian case system can go* eat a bag of dicks, basically. I have pretty good vocab (after 5+ years of study ) but still can’t put a sentence together correctly.

We’re a bilingual English/Russian family and DD will be doing Russian to GCSE come hell or high water.

*by plane, car, train or on foot

When in Germanic environs....
Make sure you go aufs Klo
or auf die Toilette if you are in very polite company.
Not ins Klo.

Took me too long to learn that!

One thing I like about French is that words like "neighbour" or "cousin" change if the person in question is male or female. I think this is really useful and something that's missing from English.

Slightly off topic. What I want to know is how do you go gender neutral in France? Eg Sam Smith is referred to as they. In French it'd have to be ils or elles. Therefore how would a French publication refer to them? If it wrote ils then surely that's not gender neutral.