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- "The apple juice"
"The apple juice"
Translation:Der Apfelsaft
24 Comments
gender of a compound word is defined by its last part. here "Apfelsaft" is (masculine) defined by "Saft" (masculine). **note: juice, coffee, tea, wine,... (etc.)... drinks are masculine.
You learn it :-)
There are some regular rules, but they're the exceptions. Long-term, you can get a feel for what gender a word should be. But you have to start somewhere. It's better to think of the gender as part of the word itself.
That's correct... ZahidurRah1's post should say that MOST drinks are masculine. Exceptions include: das Bier (beer), die Milch (milk), die Cola (coke/soda), and of course, das Wasser (water).
grammatical properties of compound words are defined by its rightmost part/morpheme
https://german.stackexchange.com/questions/3686/articles-for-compound-words
Why is the 'Apfel' in 'Apfelsaft' not in the plural like the 'Orangen' in 'Orangensaft'?
415
There is no particular reason for it, I suppose. You may have to learn if the singular or plural is used for every kind of juice. Traube-n-saft - Traube = grape, Trauben = grapes, Mangosaft, Birne-n-saft - Birne = pear, Birnen = pears. Germans have similar confusions with different acids. Butyric acid = Buttersäure (Butter = butter, Säure = acid), malic acid = Äpfelsäure (Apfel = apple - Äpfel = apples(!)), formic acid = Ameisensäure (Ameise = ant - Ameisen = ants(!); or jams: Erdbeermarmelade (Erdbeer(e) = Strawberry, Marmelade = jam), Feigenmarmelade (Feigen = figs(!))
well, it is confusing sometimes and you have to learn by heart a lot but eventually you will get a feeling for it (and just stay wondering about Äpfelsäure like every german in every german chemistry course..)
- 171
Perhaps because malic acid is found naturally in apples, and contributes to the sour taste of the more sour apples?
- 667
Is there any rule about which words can or can't be made into compound words? Are there rules to follow when forming compound words? Or is it 'just learn the words as you go,' like with genders?
Every time I try to learn another language I come across situations like der, die, das, den and it makes me love English that much more. "The" is "the" and "beer" is a word not a gender.
When talking about genders of complex words ("superwords" formed by two words or more), the gender is the same of the last word. Ex.: DER OrangeSAFT - the orange juice, DAS KrankenHAUS - the hospital, DAS ArmBAND - the bracelet, DIE ArmbandUHR - the watch
Hope it helped!
"Saft" is a masculine word, so it takes the masculine articles. (Ein/Der, Den/Einen). Das is for neuter words. You may want to read Tips and Notes- "The"
In this case, "Apfel" happens to be masculine as well, but the gender of a compound is determined by the second half.
The gender of a noun is something you have to learn by heart. There are no special endings or rules that I know of.
I don't know if I posted this question already but when do I use "den" instead of "der" for "the"? Is it for certain words or people? Please let me know.
