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- Topic: German >
- "Die Frau isst Fisch."
46 Comments
Sometimes I just confuse myself and think "the woman is fish", because isst sounds like is. Hahaha.
Ok, Officialy i have no clue what the difference between Der, Die, and Das is.. I think it's because i started with the android app, and it doesn't have the same explanations and clarifications as the website provides. help would be very much appreciated!
In the nominative case: der = masculine, die = feminine, das = neuter. They may suffer variations depending on the case, for example in the accusative case, "der" becomes "den".
Why is it called masculine/feminine/neuter? No idea, because the "gender" of the word won't tell you much. For some reason, "the girl" is "das Mädchen", instead of what you'd probably guess, "die Mädchen". In the same way, fishes come in different genders (male fishes, female fishes), so you'd expect it to be "das Fisch", yet is actually "der Fisch", even though you can also have female fishes.
So, you can't really determine the gender of a word. Every single word has a gender, and that is just the way the language works (unlike English, but similar to Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, etc.). The best strategy is to memorize not "Frau", but rather "die Frau". I'm pretty sure that once you become more fluent, you'll start to develop an intuition and be able to guess what is the gender of X word, but for now, you'll have to memorize it, as there is no apparent rule to determine it anyway.
I have a rather silly question! Suppose I mix up the gender(which I will anyway), would I look as an idiot before 'ein German'?
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You would sound like a foreigner and people will tend to try to talk to you in English. However, if it's just once in a while and not with words that change meaning depending on the gender, then you'll be fine.
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There actually are some rules they can help you determine what gender a word is supposed to be. For example, diminutives tend to be neuter. And that's why Mädchen is "das"!
Incidentally, the little-boy equivalent of Mädchen is "das Jungchen" (neuter) while the non-diminutive form is "die Magd" (feminine).
A german girl is living with me right now, so she days that Die: feminine Der: masculine Das: neither
"Die Frau isst etwas Fisch", I think, but that's not really something you'd usually say in German.
"The lady eats fish." was my answer. Why is it incorrect? Frau translates to woman and lady, so it says. After answering with "woman" so many times, I thought try "lady" for a change. WRONG? Give me my heart back!
Essen is a plural form, so you'd use it when the subject is plural: Die Frauen essen Fisch.
Impossible to tell from the English side, as fish can be either singular or plural, though sometimes "fishes" will be used for the plural (rarely).
Why is "Die Frau isst Fische" wrong? I thought to put it as " The woman eats Fishes".
Isst means eating. So how does 'some' come in the sentence. Its confusing.
the correct answer said "The woman eats some fish" where is the word for "some"; I believe the sentence should read "Die Frau some etwas Fisch"
I got it right but it marked me wrong, while saying the correct answer which was the one I put down.
