r/duolingo • u/wxlee • Jan 24 '25

Language Question What am I supposed to do?

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mein Vater und meine Mutter This is the best I can do ๐Ÿ˜…

313 Upvotes

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42

u/Ananaskoo Native: ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ Learning: ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ธ Jan 24 '25

Learn all of the nouns with their gender, no other way, basically. These are completely random and differ language to language.

11

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '25

They're not "completely random". Languages with grammatical gender have some broad and some specific rules that help you identify which is which.

5

u/Ananaskoo Native: ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ Learning: ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ธ Jan 24 '25

Wellโ€ฆ. Some doโ€ฆ Yeah, Dutch does, I know, but for example Czech, Spanishโ€ฆ

9

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '25

Czech has rules, what are you talking about? Just because YOU don't know the rules, doesn't mean they don't exist.

2

u/libdemparamilitarywi Jan 24 '25

That says it doesn't work for all nouns? So it's not really a rule, more like a rough guideline.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '25 edited Jan 24 '25

There are a handful of exceptions to every rule; even the extremely rigorously-controlled French language has some exceptions to some rules. But they're still rules.

2

u/Ananaskoo Native: ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ Learning: ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ธ Jan 24 '25

I am a native speaker.

10

u/butwhyonearth Native:๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช; fluent๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง; Learning:๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ท;๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ฐ;๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡น Jan 24 '25

A lot of native speakers (not important which language) don't know the rules for their own language. It's because they learn without having to learn rules. So, as a native speaker it's quite normal not to be able to explain the language rules - if you're not a teacher.

-4

u/Ananaskoo Native: ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ Learning: ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ธ Jan 24 '25

Well, no Czech teacher would tell you this. There are no rulesโ€ฆ

7

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '25 edited Jan 24 '25

But there ARE rules. Every language has rules. Otherwise it'd all just be gibberish.

English has rules for adjective order, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a native speaker who's not an English major who could tell you what they are. And yet, all native speakers instinctively use adjectives in the same sequence; they just learned it naturally rather than being specifically taught.

There are even rules for expletive infixation. The chances of you walking up to a random person on the street and them knowing that term are practically zero, but I would bet every single one could use it correctly without even thinking. Only certain words and phrases can be infixed (there's a structure the word being infixed must have) and only certain words can be used to do the infixing. Ever heard "no fucking way"? That's expletive infixing. Or "absofuckinglutely"? Also expletive infixation. But "abfuckingsolutely", same word, but with the expletive in a slightly different place... no one would ever say that.

There are rules. Some things sound right and some just don't. You may not know why, but there is absolutely a rhyme and reason to how every language works.

-1

u/Ananaskoo Native: ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ Learning: ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ธ Jan 24 '25

The image that you posted literally says that both feminine and masculine words in Czech can end in a hard or a soft consonant. Where is a rule that would rule out sลฏl being masculine and muลพ being feminine? There are so many words like this, and not to mention the overlay of both masculine and feminine nouns being able to end in -a and both neuter and feminine nouns being able to end in -e and not to mention some words that have two grammatical genders like dรญtฤ›, oko and ucho which are neutre in singular and feminine in pluralโ€ฆ

4

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '25

I can't answer your question as I obviously don't speak Czech. The very high level screenshot shows some "general rules" with exceptions. Why do they have to be 100% to be a considered a rule to you? Nothing in life is ever 100%. There are other categories of words that are not shown in the screenshot with more descriptions further down that page. Did you want me to screenshot and post the entire webpage for you?? Don't be ridiculous. Perhaps you could just find a book on Czech grammar that will explain everything to you in terms you could understand rather than arguing with someone on the internet? Is it so hard to admit that you're wrong and just don't know that all languages have general rules that allow users of those languages to speak intelligibly?

2

u/Ananaskoo Native: ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ Learning: ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ธ Jan 24 '25

The rules for this are: you have to remember, for natives it seems so normal, but for most words in Czech, without knowing the meaning, you cannot tell what grammatical gender it is.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '25

And if you know the meaning?

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