&gt; That pronunciation makes it hard to learn. Seriously, people always complain about gender of words being complex – english pronunciation and spelling is several times worse.<p>Are they, though?
Take a fixed set of rules for english pronunciation. Add a list of exceptions. Is this list as big as the list of nouns of portuguese, spanish, or french?
(we can define as big in number of words, or try some information theoretical construct, or even go to some psicological measure, should one exist. I am still betting that the english pronunciation, evil as it is, is not as bad as a gender to every noun)<p>(I am a native portuguese speaker, and only got mad about gender in nouns when leaning french)