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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Cambridge introduces gender neutral German

14 replies

Clymene · 25/10/2022 12:53

The University of Cambridge’s decision to say Auf Wiedersehen to teaching gendered German has prompted warnings from linguists that students risk making a fool of themselves when talking with native speakers.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b7a35c42-53b4-11ed-a03e-f7ac672386f7?shareToken=a3788e0080f76b9ee69e08ab37c465699_

Good grief.

OP posts:
TrainedByCats · 25/10/2022 13:03

You couldn’t parody this

PickAChew · 25/10/2022 13:05

April 1st is still 5 over months away! What a load of rot.

TheKeatingFive · 25/10/2022 13:08

Christ on a bike. If the academic sector could just stop making total fools of themselves for five minutes, that would be a real step forward.

Its extremely concerning that this is where we send our children to learn.

HoofWankingSpangleCunt · 25/10/2022 13:12

It’s embarrassing just reading about it. My DD just graduated with a degree in German and History and I am so thankful she doesn’t have to deal with this utter bollocks.

HoofWankingSpangleCunt · 25/10/2022 13:15

Anyway, German is hard enough without making it unnecessarily complicated <remembers der die das die , dem die das die etc >

Igneococcus · 25/10/2022 13:21

I'm unclear who they want to protect? The students who learn German or anyone those students will talk to at some point in the future?
Not sure why Cambridge thinks they can mess with my language.

Riapia · 25/10/2022 13:35

Young people are going to get themselves a lifetime of debt to be ‘educated’ by these twats.

YouSoundLovely · 25/10/2022 13:52

They're not suggesting getting rid of grammatical genders (which would be entirely impractical). As far as I can tell by the article, this is about teaching forms - that are already in common use - that avoid the problem of gendered language - such as 'Studierende' (the non-gendered progressive form - literally 'those who are studying') instead of the generic masculine plural 'Studenten'. The 'gender star' isn't all that alarming either. It just means you give both the masculine and feminine form separated by an asterisk - 'Student*in'. In speech, you mark it with a short pause. There's no reason why non-native speakers would make fools of themselves using these correctly. I use them, and I'm a non-native speaker (albeit near-native).

Some German broadsheet media get round the problem by alternating generic feminine and masculine forms. That's my preferred method, if it's practical.

(This post is not a comment either way on any of the associated issues - just to point out that Cambridge is not in fact entirely rewriting the language, as the article's headline and initial paragraphs make it seem).

thirdfiddle · 25/10/2022 13:55

Ah, I wondered if that might be what it was about yousoundlovely. Makes a lot more sense.

ErrolTheDragon · 25/10/2022 13:57

Yeah...tbh sounds like rather sensationalist reporting. They're saying students may use these new 'inclusive' forms, not that they must.

EBearhug · 25/10/2022 14:02

I was discussing this with a German colleague (also in Dortmund) about a decade ago; we work in IT, which is massively male dominated in our specialism in particular. He talked about how job ads were trying to be more gender neutral, because it can imply Ingenieur is just men, if Ingenieurin isn't mentioned. Even in English where engineer is engineer male or female, there's been an effort to look at the vocabulary of job ads to try and be more inclusive of women, and English is mostly an ungendered language.

We haven't really spoken about trans stuff, and I'm not sure I have the energy to do so, though he'd be safe to do so, whatever his standpoint (not sure all my colleagues would be.)

Fairislefandango · 25/10/2022 14:03

Definitely sensationalist reporting. I'm a German teacher and was all ready to be incensed when I clicked on the link, imagining that they were suggesting using only neuter or something, but no.

ReunitedThorns · 25/10/2022 14:15

It makes me laugh that other languages have inherent gender in them, yet the biggest moaners about language not fitting their trans ideology are English speakers.

zanahoria · 25/10/2022 14:25

English is Gender neutral German.

Isn't this cultural imperialism or something?

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