As an English speaker learning German, I face endless confusion and frustration with many of the short question words that are “False Friends”
Such as:
Wer (where) - Actually means who.
Wo (Who) - Actually means where.
Wie (We) - Actually means how.
Was (was) - Actually means what.
Also (also) - Actually means so.
Will (will) - Actually means to want.
And the completely arbitrary gender assignments!
For example.
The year is: Das Jahr, a neuter word.
The month is: Der Monat, a masculine word.
And the week is: Die Woche, a feminine word.
And then there’s directly counter-intuitive examples of words that seem like they Should be a gender other than what they are, such as:
The little girl - Das Mädchen (Neuter, not feminine)
Breasts - Der Busen (Masculine! Boobs is masculine!)
Person - Die Person (Feminine! Why isn’t this word neuter?!"
As a German I have to agree: Yes, the whole gender system of the language is nuts.
And false friends work in both ways.
My favorite:
bekommen - to get
become - werden
“I become a sausage!”
As a German, do you have a difficult time remembering the genders of new words? Or does it come naturally?
The recommended way for remembering words’ genders is to always attach an adjective in front of a word when learning it.
Do not try to learn “die Nacht”.
Learn “stille Nacht”, which means “a quiet night”.
The -e in the word “stille” is there because the word is feminine. When you learn “stille Nacht”, you can automatically recognize it must be “die Nacht”.
Similarly: “Blödes Auto” means “Stupid car”. the ending -es means it’s das Auto.
And “Blöder Mann” means “stupid man”. -er, because it’s der Mann.
Same works in other languages as well. Buen viño = Good wine. Therefore: El viño. Persona rapida = A fast person. -a means it’s la persona.
Because a native speaker of German often hears adjectives in combination with words when they learn them, they automatically constantly receive the necessary information on the words’ genders.
I am perhaps too old to answer that question, as I don’t stumble upon new words often enough any more.
Most of the new ones for me are imported terms, like “Computer” or “Internet”.
These are mostly gendered based on the translation of the part that defines them, e.g. “the net” - “das Netz”, so it is somewhat logical.
There are some unclear or disputed ones, though. E.g. “Interface” is “das”, but “API” (from application programming interface) often is “die”, because “the interface” translates to “die Schnittstelle”.
Also, there are some regional differences.
E.g. “Butter” is female (“die”) in many parts of Germany, but in some it is male “der”.
To sum up: It is complicated.