• IndescribablySad@threads.net@sh.itjust.works
    70·
    2 months ago

    French is wild, but it’s actually pretty easy to remember genders for appliances in particular. Generally, the more attractive the appliance, the less questionable its gender. Who could misgender a swamp cooler or a blender?

    • Stamets@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      17·
      2 months ago

      SEND THAT CUNT BACK TO HELL FROM WHENCE IT CAME

      Telefrancais haunted my nightmares so badly as a child

  • Ethalis@jlai.lu
    29·
    2 months ago

    C’mon, une machine a laver is obviously a girl! Unless you call it a lave-linge instead, in which case it’s a boy.

  • acargitz@lemmy.ca
    15·
    2 months ago

    Un baguette, une baguette, le la.

    Il y a un truc qui peut vous servir dans cette situation là.

    Dites juste deux baguettes.

    C’est un peu plus cher mais en tout cas, il vaut la peine et vous aurez deux baguettes à la fin.

    • TriflingToad@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      13·
      2 months ago

      A baguette, a baguette, the a.

      There is a trick that can help you in this situation.

      Just say two baguettes.

      It is a little more expensive but in any case, it is worth it and you will have two baguettes at the end.

      I don’t think the translator worked that well here, but I think it makes it funner lmao

  • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    13·
    2 months ago

    My native language is gendered but I still don’t always know how I’m supposed to talk about male members of a species with a feminine name or vice versa.

    “A person by the name of Mary was…” “Person” is masculine. Mary can hear me and I don’t want to offend her. “Was” has a masculine and a feminine form.

    I think the masculine form of “was” would be technically correct, but then do I have to use masculine pronouns? “A person by the name of Mary was there and he…” The real answer is to rephrase what I said to avoid awkward grammar.

    • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
      1·
      2 months ago

      i thought gendered languages had two genders for words like “person” so you could make the swap when the gender is known

      e.g. un person / une personne

      • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        I deliberately picked an example where there isn’t (or I don’t know) a feminine version. Most words that I can think of for various categories of people do have two genders, although in many cases the feminine version sounds awkward to me, a little like the “trix” suffix does to English speakers.

        (Also, the male default sometimes makes using the feminine version of a word sound like you’re deliberately emphasizing that you’re referring specifically to women as opposed to simply talking about someone who happens to be a woman.)

  • TriflingToad@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    10·
    2 months ago

    in my Spanish (HS) class if I don’t know I just guess based off of the vibes

    I’ve guessed correctly more often than not

    • JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml
      9·
      2 months ago

      I don’t know how German compares to French or Spanish, but in German things can be masculine, feminine, or neutral. What I do—which is partially as a protest, and partially out of laziness—is to assume every non-person noun is neutral.

      It works surprisingly well in IT where basically all nouns are neutral, but I probably sound like Kevin from The Office in every other context.

        • JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml
          1·
          2 months ago

          This is arguably subjective, but I think making masculine and feminine words neuter is the only way to counteract the inherent sexism of gendered nouns. If you make everything masculine, you’re still tacitly supporting the previous categorization of masculine nouns as correct, and vice versa for making every noun feminine.

            • JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml
              2·
              2 months ago

              I don’t remember most of the grammatically correct genders, but when I was trying to learn them I had the distinct impression that stereo-typically manly nouns were masculine and stereo-typically womanly things were feminine.

              I have heard nonbinary people find neuter as being offensive because it’s infantilizing them. At least that’s how it was explained to me.

              I haven’t heard anything about that but that’s really interesting. Do you know how they prefer to be addressed?

                • JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml
                  1·
                  2 months ago

                  Interesting, thanks!

                  Do you know what level German you are at?

                  I took a full-year German course in university a few years ago, and by the end of that I was probably A1. I’ve forgotten most of it since then, but I could probably relearn it within a few weeks. Every time I visit my German side of the family I try to brush up on it, but that isn’t very often.

                  Now it’s been 15 months learning daily and am at the B1 level. So not an expert just intermediate with more to learn.

                  Good for you. I feel like the hardest part of German (as a non-native speaker) is regularly practicing.

  • w3dd1e@lemm.ee
    9·
    2 months ago

    The word for potato is my favorite. It’s so fancy and English just calls it a potato.

    • SleepyBear@lemmy.world
      6·
      2 months ago

      My highschool french class always loved the word for “squirrel”, “pomegranate”, and of course the ever popular “seal in the shower” combo for extra fun.

    • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
      3·
      2 months ago

      to be fair, that’s a modern take. in antiquity it was so ignoble it was given the generic name for a fruit/vegetable.

      a modern version might be more akin to “dirt thing”

  • Llufollis@sh.itjust.worksFrançais
    101·
    2 months ago

    A machine in french is feminine. It come from latin machina (μαχανά in Greek) which is feminine (-ina suffix is feminine). Washing is just a verb so it have no influence on the “gender”.

    A washing machine -> Une machine à laver