"The person reads a newspaper."

Translation:Die Person liest eine Zeitung.

April 8, 2013

12 Comments
This discussion is locked.


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/garzvas

What is the difference between Person and Mensch?


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/arisplus

Person vs Human


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/Carl527908

Also, to translate Person to Mensch is quite strange. Mensch = Human

Annoying..


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/Ali749785

You didn't introduce this noun's gender in the tips then you test it first question. Where's the teaching in that?


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/transmatter

Why is it die person and not das person because person is a noun used for both male and female.?


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/mizinamo

It is neither of those -- it is die Person (with capital P).

The grammatical gender of a noun does not, in general, have anything to do with the natural gender of the object that the noun refers to. It's just something that you have to learn.

das Messer is neuter, die Gabel is feminine, der Löffel is masculine, even though knives, forks, and spoons are neither male or female.

Similarly, die Person is feminine (even though persons can be male or female) and das Mädchen is neuter (even though girls are female), etc.

Learn the gender of a noun together with a noun; trying to deduce it through "logic" will usually not work.


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/Pan.X
  • 1190

This is a very stilted sentence. It sounds like an observer of a secret service tells somebody else of the actions of the observed person.

I would never say it this way in any normal conversation. I'd say Sie liest eine Zeitung. or Er liest eine Zeitung.. Or I would use the persons name instead of the pronoun.

Person is generally a word used to talk about somebody from an emotional distance, at least in German.


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/Pradnyesh09

Isnt person netural??? So why not das and rather use die???


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/mizinamo

Isnt person netural?

"person" is an English word, and English nouns do not have grammatical gender.

The German word Person (with capital P) is grammatically feminine.

Hence die Person.


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/Amy230434

Why cant I use mensch here? It is even on the list of possibles. And I have now lost a heart.


https://www.duolingo.com/profile/mizinamo

Why cant I use mensch here?

mensch (with a small m) is not commonly used in German; I wouldn't recommend that beginners learn it.

You can use Mensch (capital m), which means "human being" but can also often be used as "person".

So you could write Der Mensch liest eine Zeitung, for example.

What was your entire answer?

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