"The girl eats bread."

Translation: Das Mädchen isst Brot.

[Neroli]

This gender thing is difficult. How can Madchen be neuter when it means girl?

[sherryli1119]

yes I want to ask as well!!! Why Madchen is neutral????

[josefkhen]

Because the suffix -chen (meaning little) always makes the noun neuter. The base noun is Ma[umlaut]d, which to my knowledge is obsolete.

[oddbean]

I keep getting confused between isst and esse, and when to use them.

[Niniel28b]

Isst is when it's either second person singular "you" (du) or third person singular "he" (er) or "she" (sie) or "it" (es) does it.
Esse is when it's first person singular. In other words " I " (ich)

ich esse

du isst

er/sie/es isst

---

wir essen

ihr esst

sie/Sie essen

[chanth.S]

Thanks

[AllyWolf1]

Thanks alot

[hassijr]

Thanks

[vishu7997]

Thanks

[thefuturebabe]

Why is it "Die Frau" but its "Das Mädchen" ?? are they not both feminine?

[HeitorAlthmann]

Because as @josefkhen:

"Because the suffix -chen (meaning little) always makes the noun neuter. The base noun is Ma[umlaut]d, which to my knowledge is obsolete."

[tkrspeer]

with the word 'Brot' is the 'R' rolled off the tongue like in spanish or is it more in the back of the throat? it is a little difficult to decipher.

[oddbean]

I initially learned it the first way (not a heavy roll, more front of the mouth though), many years ago in German class, I have since discovered that in German, there are many different accents, and the back of the throat pronunciation differing from front might be a regional thing depending on where the person saying it is from in Germany. Please correct me if I'm wrong, any else that see this.

[bjsatola]

Sounds reasonable. I know some people from Bremen and they roll the "r" sound slightly when saying Bremen, but it only seems to be a local (regional) pronunciation as far as I can tell.

[LesleyFatk]

How do get umlauts on nexus 7 keyboard

[vsharma5]

Hold down the letter you want an umlaut on and it should give you options

[allenherlambang]

I'm confused with der/die/das. When are we using those words?

[glordan]

I think der is masculine, die is feminine and das is neutral.

[one_half_3544]

Interesting - I had a 'Das MäDCHEN isst Brot' (yes, with such weird capitalization) a a possible option, which strangely got rejected (despite the fact the duo is case-insensitive).