Subject: This brings back memories.
Author:
Posted on: 2015-01-13 13:28:00 UTC

I studied German for six years straight; I had to commit 'der-die-das-die, den-die-das-die' etc to memory. (We learnt nominative and accusative first, because it means you can construct simple sentences - 'Die Frau küsste den Mann' - and we were doing verbs and nouns at the same time. Dative I also remember learning, though bizarrely genitive has completely slipped from my mind. We must have used it, right? You... you can't go six years without anyone owning or having anything, right?)

German has always struck me as a nice, sensible language. The cases are all distinct (none of this 'oh, yeah, accusative is merged with nominative, and everything else is expressed through extra words', yes, I'm looking at you, English), and helpfully, it's almost entirely phonetic. I have a soft spot for words I can read and pronounce without having to randomly drop letters everywhere (yes, I'm looking at you, French).

That said: stars above, I'm glad English got rid of grammatical gender. Best move we ever made.

hS

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