DerDieDas.wtf: If you know the pain of learning the gender of nouns in German
I&#x27;ve often thought the only saving grace for those learning goddamn English as a second language is that they are spared all this gendered nouns nonsense (that is except for a few special cases).<p>Gendered nouns, both in French and German, have always been a problem for me. German came later but I recall at school that the beginning of each chapter of my French textbook had a list of nouns each preceded by its article and learning them was a pain. After school I&#x27;d sit on my bed bashing my head against the pages of the textbook whilst trying to learn these damn genders, they made no logical sense to me and rules for remembering them had so many exceptions that they were essentially useless. I hated learning them.<p>German was a whisker easier in that I was in German-speaking Austria when I was learning it so I was exposed to the nouns&#x27; usage on a daily basis. For me, the real gotchas in German were its damn declensions!<p>In my opinion, the only effective way to learn these genders is to be smothered in the language on a daily basis—this way, somehow, one learns them by a form of osmosis.<p>As already mentioned elsewhere, 
<i>Appendix D - The Awful German Language</i> in Mark Twain&#x27;s <i>The Tramp Abroad</i> is a quintessential summing up of the difficulties a native English speaker has in learning German. It&#x27;s a brilliant summary, not only is it hilariously funny but also he gives some excellent examples from different aspects of the language such as separable verbs, gendered and compound nouns and those damn German adjectives.<p>It&#x27;s a while since I&#x27;ve read it so I can&#x27;t remember chapter and verse but I&#x27;d thoroughly recommend anyone interested in the matter of German genered nouns read his bit on the &#x27;sex&#x27; of fishwives and young girls. <i>Appendix D</i> also has some unforgettable comments on the length of German compound words—something to the effect that <i>&#x27;they stretch across the page like mountain ranges&#x27;</i> and are long enough <i>&#x27;to have perspective.&#x27;</i><p>It&#x27;s a must-read.