http://www.englishforums.com/English/CulturalAnecdotesSimilarities-Differences/Forum19.htmAll topics related to cultural interaction. Please register if you wish to post here.enXMOD (Build: 3607.32596)http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/2/qbkw/Post.htm#470606Fri, 22 May 2009 05:13:42 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:470606Anonymous0http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/2/qbkw/Post.htm#470606http://www.englishforums.com/English/comments19-470606.xmlMy year 11 students are still struggling with the concept of grammatical gender (they are not thick !) It is really difficult for us Brits. Good luck to all you English learners, David, Charlotte, Lisa, Alan, Marc and Madame Barclayhttp://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/2/qbkw/Post.htm#353402Sun, 22 Feb 2009 06:13:42 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:353402Cool Breeze1http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/2/qbkw/Post.htm#353402http://www.englishforums.com/English/comments19-353402.xmlNona The Brit wrote: I'd be interested in this as I've never understood why an inanimate object needs a gender! Hi Nona and all Inanimate objects don't need a gender at all but in some languages nouns just have gender, for inexplicable reasons. My language, Finnish, isn't related to English in the least and is grammatically completely different from it. Yet our languages share one characteristic: neither has grammatical gender for nouns. This hasn't always been the case, though. Before 448AD no one spoke English in Britain and when the first Germanic tribes invaded Britain, one of the tribes, the Saxons, came from what is Germany today. So there is German blood in the average Englishman. The language they spoke was grammatically...http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/qbkw/post.htm#353012Thu, 22 Jan 2009 06:13:42 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:353012Kooyeen2http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/qbkw/post.htm#353012http://www.englishforums.com/English/comments19-353012.xmlHi, in Italian every word has a gender. I have to say that you recognize if a word is "a male" or "a female" looking at the last vowel. Umm, not 100% sure, though, on second thought there are some exceptions, but... well, I think practically no one here get the gender wrong, not even children. Examples: All feminine: casa (house), bomba (bomb), persona (person), finestra (window), strada (road), giraffa (giraffe), acqua (water), auto (car), pizza (pizza), bocca (mouth)... All masculine: computer (computer), qualcuno (somebody), nessuno (nobody), frigorifero (refrigerator), sale (salt), mare (sea), piede (foot), pomodoro (tomato)... Yeah, it could seem strange, it doesn't seem strange to me because I'm used to...http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/qbkw/post.htm#352974Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:13:42 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:352974Anonymous3http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/qbkw/post.htm#352974http://www.englishforums.com/English/comments19-352974.xmlThe feminine quality in English of nouns such as ship usually have poetic or symbolic meaning. Sailors, for example, refered to ships as "she" because the ship was their wife, their mother, their lover. It's a "she" in a poetic sense, and the convention carried over into common usage. But it is not incorrect to refer to a ship or a country as "it." No one would think you were weird if you say "The ship lost its mast" instead of "The ship lost her mast." Both would be correct.http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/qbkw/post.htm#118934Sun, 22 Feb 2009 06:13:42 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:118934yau4http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/qbkw/post.htm#118934http://www.englishforums.com/English/comments19-118934.xmlEnglish isn't complete immune from the terrible gender system. Ship or country is definitely somethnig feminine.http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/qbkw/post.htm#118874Thu, 22 Jan 2009 06:13:42 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:118874Anonymous5http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/qbkw/post.htm#118874http://www.englishforums.com/English/comments19-118874.xmlYes, your question is really interesting. I'm Brazilian and consequently a Portuguese speaker. In my native language, like in Italian, French, Spanish and German (some languages that I've been studying, other than English), people use the definite and indefinite articles, pronouns, etc. according to the noun gender. We Brazilians (I'll try to answer for the country, forgive me if I'm wrong!) normally learn our language by thinking of words as having gender, be it masculine or feminine. And teachers of very young students teach them by using stories (fables) where objects and animals are really portrayed as male or female beings. This follows the way we think. In our stories, a fox is considered female because "raposa" is feminine in...http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/qbkw/post.htm#96490Thu, 22 Jan 2009 06:13:42 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:96490Guest6http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/qbkw/post.htm#96490http://www.englishforums.com/English/comments19-96490.xmlI would like to know more about genders in languages especially english and spanish becouse I am writing diploma on this themehttp://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/qbkw/post.htm#79571Sun, 22 Mar 2009 06:13:42 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:79571Elena7http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/qbkw/post.htm#79571http://www.englishforums.com/English/comments19-79571.xmlHi khoff, it doesn't seem odd to me that English does not care what the gender is of a table or a book, but it bothers me when the gender of a new word in French doesn't coincide with the gender in Spanish, my language. I don't think of feminine nouns as being "feminine". If I think about that, just the article attracts my attention a little bit.http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/qbkw/post.htm#79493Sun, 22 Mar 2009 06:13:42 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:79493Miche8http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/qbkw/post.htm#79493http://www.englishforums.com/English/comments19-79493.xmlHi, Khoff and all you native English speakers! I've always been sympathetic with English/American people trying to study my native language, Bulgarian. We are lucky, because it is easier for us to learn English. It doesn't sound strange that inanimate nouns do not have gender in English - it just makes it simpler. That's one of the reasons why I believe English will certainly become an universal language one day (if it hasn't yet). As you note, you can guess the gender in Russian by the spelling. It's the same in my native language (it is similar to Russian). However, little children tend to make mistakes with the gender of words that do not fit the pattern (e.g. feminine nouns ending in a consonant and vice versa - these are the...http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/qbkw/post.htm#79380Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:13:42 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:79380nona the brit9http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/qbkw/post.htm#79380http://www.englishforums.com/English/comments19-79380.xmlI'd be interested in this as I've never understood why an inanimate object needs a gender!http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/qbkw/post.htmFri, 22 May 2009 05:13:42 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:79075khoff10http://www.englishforums.com/English/GrammaticalGender/qbkw/post.htmhttp://www.englishforums.com/English/comments19-79075.xmlSince English does not have grammatical gender for inanimate nouns, we native English speakers often have trouble remembering the correct gender of nouns in other languages. I would like to ask you native speakers of languages that have grammatical gender some questions, please. Does it seem odd to you that English does not care what the gender is of a table or a book? If you learn a second language that has grammatical gender, and the gender of a particular noun is not the same as it is in your native language, does this bother you? Do you actually think of feminine nouns as being "feminine" in any meaningful way, or is it just like having "Category A" nouns and "Category B" nouns? Among native speakers of your language, do children...