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It's almost like they are the words "dress" and "dressings" in English. So it would be like if we used the word "dressings" instead of clothing.
I do not think there really is a difference with respect to the meaning, but I was not able to come up with a single situation in which I would say Bekleidung, so Kleidung should do the trick in any circumstance.
clothes (what you may be wearing right now) vs clothes (the entirety of your wardrobe)
That's what I learned in school as well, but I've never come across the word in Germany. My German dictionary gives me broken-up building stones, worthless objects, and stuff before it talks about clothes. Kleider is the word I've seen and used the most for clothes.
I thought Klamotten was a kind of slang word young girls say. for " gear". Sie trägt schicke Klamotten = she wears trendy gear. I read an online post that asked "Wo gibts online schicke Klamotten?" = Where can I get some trendy gear online? literally "Where is there online.....? http://fashion.erdbeerlounge.de/Modeforum/Wo-gibts-online-schicke-Klamotten-_t729558s1
Nope, it's used more widely.
Die is the feminine and plural definite article. Clothes in this sentence is both plural and feminine.
I'm in German 2, and in German 1 my class was taught "die Klamotten" for the meaning of "The Clothing." I see there's comments regarding it, but not truly addressing it. Any definitive answer on die Kleidung verses die Klamotten?
It's just a more casual/informal term from what I understand: http://german.stackexchange.com/questions/5108/unterschied-zwischen-klamotten-und-kleider
Die is the feminine definite, Der is the masculine, and Das is the neuter. The only easy way that you're going to be able to learn them is through memorization, but when you can't remember, Duolingo will give the correct gender word at the top of the drop-down hint.
I learned in high school that all words ending with 'ung' are feminine. The rest I learn through memorization as well. If other people have more tricks, please let me know :)
From one of my replies in another thread, but addressed to you:
It looks as if you may have moved on to other languages, Carola1991, but should you ever return, or should others have the same question, a number of different resources have categorized various German nouns in ways that can help learners remember the gender. Below are some of the better ones I have found:
Some Hints on How to Guess Gender
Also, if you're not offended by seeing a rather strange photo showing lots of skin at the top of the page, this page here is really rather comprehensive and worth studying: Suffixes.
Gender Rules (how to work out which gender)
German Articles (Gender of Nouns)
What is the gender distribution of nouns in the German language?
Hope these tools help you guess better until you've learned the articles for the nouns you want to know. As you will read in many posts, it is best to learn the article at the same time as you learn the noun.
Why is "Clothing" in general regarded incorrect here? Isn't it the exact translation of "Kleidung?"
If you just wrote "Clothing", that would be an incomplete translation of this sentence. You need to keep the "the": "The clothing". As in English, this sentence has a different meaning whether you include that word or leave it out.
