"The boy and the girl"
Translation:Der Junge und das Mädchen
142 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
You are right, but 'das Mädchen' is a diminutive word. 'das Mädchen' comes from the archaic word 'die Magd'.
All nouns with diminutive endings like '-chen' and '-lein' are neutral, even if their original gender is not.
Examples:
der Hund - das Hündchen | die Katze - das Kätzchen
der Mann - das Männchen | der Mann - das Männlein
die Frau - das Frauchen | die Frau - das Fräulein
(Many words can have both endings that sometimes have different meanings or connotations.)
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Diminutive marks smallness: Das Hündchen = der kleine Hund = the small dog ; Das Hündlein = der kleine Hund = the small dog, etc.
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Not quite! Female creatures are usually feminine. But when a Word ends on -"chen" or -"lein" (and sometimes other endings from specific dialects example: -erl in Bavaria and Austria) are neuter. Das Mädchen (the girl), but die Frau (the woman), die Lehrerin (the female teacher), ...
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Many languages have gender and cases... and you can argue, if it is better or not, because less cases limit preciseness and free wordorder: "Das Brot isst der Mann" would literally translate into "the bread eats the man", but the Cases make the exact meaning clear.
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Now here gender is difficult: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (1) "Das Kind" is gender neutral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (2) Das Mädchen is a diminutive form meaning it is made "smaller" (it comes from the nowadays rarely used word Magd) and diminutives are always neuter in german (so "das") . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (3) Junge is actually an adjective used as a noun. When german got standardized, there was probably a problem with the word boy (I do not know what), so they just took "der Junge" meaning "the young male" if you say "die Junge", you would refer to a young female, and "das Junge" would be the child of an animal
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Now here gender is difficult: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (1) "Das Kind" is gender neutral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (2) Das Mädchen is a diminutive form meaning it is made "smaller" (it comes from the nowadays rarely used word Magd) and diminutives are always neuter in german (so "das") . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (3) Junge is actually an adjective used as a noun. When german got standardized, there was probably a problem with the word boy (I do not know what), so they just took "der Junge" meaning "the young male" if you say "die Junge", you would refer to a young female, and "das Junge" would be the child of an animal
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Now here gender is difficult: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (1) "Das Kind" is gender neutral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (2) Das Mädchen is a diminutive form meaning it is made "smaller" (it comes from the nowadays rarely used word Magd) and diminutives are always neuter in german (so "das") . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (3) Junge is actually an adjective used as a noun. When german got standardized, there was probably a problem with the word boy (I do not know what), so they just took "der Junge" meaning "the young male" if you say "die Junge", you would refer to a young female, and "das Junge" would be the child of an animal
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Duolingo accepts an if you use "ae" as "ä", "oe" as "ö" and "ue" as "ü". This is how you should write it anywhere, where you can not use them. Also it should accept an "ss" as "ß"
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The most important spelling rules on capital letters are: The Beginning of a sentence, and every noun
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"Das Junge" is the offspring of an animal.
der Junge = the boy
das Junge = the baby animal
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write Maedchen, Maenner, Floehe, Huete and Fuss instead of Mädchen, Manner, Flöhe, Hüte and Fuß
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Depends on Dialect, I say [medçεn], but some might even say [mædçən] (if you want it read, go to - http://ipa-reader.xyz/ - and select Marlene [German])
Das is for Mädchen. For some reason, German decided it didn't want 'girl' to be a female word. Love your profile pic btw.
With a MacBook Air computer, you can go to settings>German Keyboard and you can find the umlauted letters where the [;' keys are located (on US keyboard) the only problem is that the y and z keys are switched so you just have to get used to that
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Usually hold down the letter you want (in this case a) until a list of choices appears, then select the one you want.