this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2025
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[–] rockerface@lemm.ee 50 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Slavic languages: You guys have articles?

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[–] 97xBang@feddit.online 31 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)
[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 15 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Japanese: you guys have plurals?

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Japanese: just say the word twice.

[–] Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Any slavic language afaik.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Damn, beat me to it!

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[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 25 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (6 children)

What really fucks with me is akkusativ suffixes

If dein grampa isn't the first and foremost noun in a sentence then it has to be deinen grampa but if it's a feminine word the the rule doesn't matter

Meine Oma Liebt deine Oma.

Mein Opa Liebt deine Oma.

Mein Opa Liebt deinen Opa.

Meine Oma Liebt deinen Opa.

I want to be good at this but that shit makes no sense, Hans. And why the fuck does a Library have a gender?!

EDIT: Liebt not Liebst in this context

[–] brennesel@discuss.tchncs.de 19 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Just a minor correction: instead of "Liebst" it must be "liebt" since it's 3rd person singular:

  • ich liebe
  • du liebst
  • er/sie/es liebt
[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

Thank you for catching that, I appreciate the input.

[–] jenesaisquoi@feddit.org 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It's not gender like in humans or in animals. Nobody thinks of the library as a woman, that would be absurd. It's a purely grammatical concept.

[–] Schmoo@slrpnk.net 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Grammatical gender will never make sense to me, and I suspect that's because it actually just doesn't make sense.

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[–] Dagnet@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Don't worry, Dativ will come and double fuck you too

[–] Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Because the subject is in Nominativ and the object is in Akusativ here.

[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Has anybody so far just considered not doing any of that anymore?

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[–] JayObey711@lemmy.world 18 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I fucking love German grammar!!!! It's awesome. The Futur 2 and Plusquamperfekt are my favourite. We have some funky letters like ß (<- look at this guy :) ) and weird sounds like the CH and SCH. There is this one grammar "rule" that I don't like. Because there is no real rule. You just have to know. It's about the "connecting s". So in some compound words you sometimes put an s between the two words to connect them. But there is not really a way to know when to do it. It's Rind + Fleisch = Rindlfeisch but Rind + Leder = Rindsleder with an S.

Thank you all for coming to my tedtalk.

[–] PlexSheep@infosec.pub 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I love how we can stick two words together and bam it's a new word. Rucksackriemenquerverbindunsgträger

[–] samuelazers@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

Compound words are great because there's no ambiguity about where noun groups start and end. English has compound words too, but german are the undisputed champions of compound words.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Also English: Random pronunciation without working rules.

[–] thebigslime@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago (3 children)
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[–] gilgameth@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

In Persian we don't even have "the". If it's indefinite we use the equivalent of "a". If it's definite we don't use anything.

[–] jenesaisquoi@feddit.org 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That sounds... efficient

In Russian there aren't any articles, and no concept of definite/indefinite. Hence the cliché accent in English leaving out all of the "the" and "a/an"

[–] gilgameth@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I have guessed the lack of articles in Russian from the cliché! By the way, how many cases does Russian have?

[–] jenesaisquoi@feddit.org 12 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Six real cases, plus some remnants of two more that are no longer used.

The same ones as in German, plus prepositive (typical use is "in" something) and instrumental (typical use is "with" something). They also distinguish between living and non-living, for example, accusative male is the same as nominative male if the subject is non-living (things), but if living (humans and animals) then it is the same as genitive male.

They also love to use genitive for everything. Let's say you're counting. One is nominative, two through four is genitive singular, five through twenty and zero is genitive plural. Above twenty the last digit determines the case.

Wanna say a date? Ordinal number in genitive according to the rules above for the day, genitive for the month.

Wanna say x amount of something? The something is genitive. If it is countable, it's genitive plural, if it's uncountable, it's genitive singular. You might think, that's not so bad, until you discover that Russians consider onions, potatoes, carrots etc as uncountable. Of course you can't say 5 carrots! Impossible to count them. You must say "5 pieces of carrot" in genitive plural. Duh.

Please hit like and subscribe to be notified when a new Russian grammar rant is published.

[–] gilgameth@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

You might think, that's not so bad, until you discover that Russians consider onions, potatoes, carrots etc as uncountable. Of course you can't say 5 carrots! Impossible to count them.

:))) I love these random craziness of languages. And I don't want to know the reason behind them. Like when I learned the word for "girl" is neuter in German, I was happy but when I learned the reason, it was boring.

I swear Persian might be the easiest language there is.

[–] Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Is it prepositive or locative? I know slovenian has the same cases and they are used pretty similarly.

[–] jenesaisquoi@feddit.org 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Prepositive. They don't have locative anymore. I believe prep. replaced loc. They also had ablative but I think it was combined with accusative. But I'm not sure about that.

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

The last time I counted them, it was six.

[–] devfuuu@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

I finally realize why the people coming from the east to speak Portuguese have some special quirks in their efforts. It's really hard coming from that perspective.

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That's why "the" is such a common word in English. If you have a toddler, teach them to read (recognize) the word "the." Then sit down together with a book, reading aloud with your finger running under the words, and pausing to let them read all the "the"s. It'll help them get the connection between print and speech, even if they're still working on the alphabet. And they'll feel powerful.

As a lesson in English, you can explain that even though there's no t, h, or e sound in it, it's pronounced "the" because whenever t and h are together we say (long exaggerated th sound), and it's such an old and common word that we got lazy about saying "ee" and now we just say "uh."

[–] Squeezer@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

I taught my daughter to read during covid when the schools were closed. ‘The’ was the first word she learned to read, and I did exactly what you suggest, pausing for her to read it. It really helped. When my workshop reopened I made her a silver badge of the word ‘the’ to celebrate.

[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Meanwhile Danish turns the indefinite article into a definite suffix. Like:

A house: "et hus"
The house: "huset"
Houses: "huse"
The houses: "husene"

[–] zedgeist@lemm.ee 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

Don't most (if not all) Nordic languages do that?

Also, I can't help but share: https://youtu.be/s-mOy8VUEBk

[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Scandinavian, yes, nordic, well, I don't think they do it in Finnish? Not sure about Icelandic.

[–] zedgeist@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Fair. I meant Scandinavian and not Finno-Scandic in my comment. Finnish isn't even in the same language family, so I don't claim to know anything about it

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[–] whostosay@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This really fucked me up in German class

[–] jenesaisquoi@feddit.org 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Ha, try the modal verbs! Or Konjunktiv 1. Partizip is also a favourite

[–] CitizenKong@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

Plusquamperfekt! Futur II!

[–] LorIps@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

Which psychopath decided to put the cases in German in the wrong order?

It's:

  1. Fall (Nominativ)
  2. Fall (Genitiv)
  3. Fall (Dativ)
  4. Fall (Akkusativ)
[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago
[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Und jetzt machen wir die unbestimmten Artikel.

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[–] aggelalex@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Singular male, female, neuter, Plural male, female, neuter

Nominative: ο, η, το, οι, οι, τα

Genitive: του, της, του, των, των, των

Accusative: τον, την, το, τους, τις, τα

Callitive: (no article)

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[–] logorok@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

German:

Singular: der, die, das

Plural: die

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It’s a weird contrast between Germanic language German and Germanic language English

I wonder if it comes from Gaelic languages

[–] hyves@feddit.nl 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Germanic language Dutch only has "de" and "het"

[–] bob_lemon@feddit.org 3 points 2 years ago

We should absolutely steal it. All the different articles serve no linguistic purpose at all. You could literally just use "de" and "en" in German today, and it'd be perfectly understandable.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Good Neder

that’s awesome

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