can/how u understand male/female/neutre for nouns?

In romanian we have male/female/neutre for nouns. I know some of them are different in french, for example if in romanian a noun is female, in french could be male. Just few of them. What about neutre? How's your understanding of these in your language, especially if you don't have them at all (ex: English, hungarian, etc etc).
For me it's quite funny to hear hungarian people in Romania the way they are mistaken nouns and how they are randomly choose the genre for nouns. It's really funny.

Please add your comments, idea, .... etc.

Thanks!

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"I hate spam" - yeah, sure...

I don't like it. I want the Moon to be masculine, damn it!

don't worry Nookyular
SUN is masculine. :P

What is there to understand? Its just a case of memorising them, isn't it? A pain yes, but a difficult concept to understand, no.

In Slavic languages you don't need to memorise gender for each word, just know the rules, nothing difficult...

Who can explain how the Germans have gotten to the conclusion that GIRL should be Neutral? (das Maedchen!)

Regards!

I would like to hear Germans opinion on that! Thanks!

<<In Slavic languages you don't need to memorise gender for each word, just know the rules, nothing difficult...>>

Yeah, well that should be for Slavic languages. Romanian is not slavic is romance. And that's been discussed loads of times.

to 2992:

Well, my friend, In Spanish we don't have neutral nouns. So thank god we don't have problems with it. About English, I think they don't mess up with that very much, since you only have definite article 'the' and indefinite article 'a/an'. They don't specify the gender, so not much of trouble.

I guess as I don't have a previous idea of that feature, it would be a bit difficult to understand and learn, but with some practice there would be no problem :)

Pedro de Perú

English once had grammatical gender, but it eventually disappeared because it's a useless feature for a language to have since it adds no additional meaning to sentences. It's just a minor cosmetic feature with no real purpose.

<<In Slavic languages you don't need to memorise gender for each word, just know the rules, nothing difficult...>>

Yeah, well that should be for Slavic languages. Romanian is not slavic is romance. And that's been discussed loads of times.
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I know, I'm a professional linguist. I just thought that 2992 asked about genders not only in Romanian but how genders are felt in other languages too. Sorry if I understood it wrong.

For EU:

It is convenient to distinguish grammatical gender from natural gender, since the two do not always coincide. An often cited example of this is the German word Mädchen, which means "girl", but is treated grammatically as neuter. This is because it was constructed as the diminutive of Magd (archaic nowadays), and diminutive suffixes such as -chen conventionally place nouns in the "neuter" noun class.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender

<<Who can explain how the Germans have gotten to the conclusion that GIRL should be Neutral? (das Maedchen!)
Regards!
I would like to hear Germans opinion on that! Thanks!>>

Well, in German, there is a rule: if a word is a compound word, the gender of the final element is transferred to the entire word.

Such is the case with Maedchen. The concept of "girl" is not that it should be neuter, but due to the technicality that the word ends in the NEUTER particle "-chen", the word ends up being classified neuter.

Germans are not confused about a girl's gender as many have erroneously assumed. It is simply due to a misunderstanding of the linguistics.

in romanian no need to memorize them. There is a simple rule: counting 1-2. That's all... :)

to Linguist:
right, I was asking how genders are felt in other languages too,...and... how genders are percepted into languages where the gender doesn't exist. (as a concept to understand - isn't so difficult)

The real purpose is hard to be understand as long as a type of language with nouns genre isn't the mother language. Maybe latin speakers here can confirm that... having genre isn't such a pain. It's really beautiful than just saying "a/an" or "it".
PS: "the" has nothing to do with nouns genre. ;)

For me it's quite interesting because romanian has all three of them.

Thanks Guest!

A German colleague said that Maedchen has more to do with a status/stage/phase of body transition (virginity!?!) ...but I will take your explanation for grant.

<<<<<<<<It is convenient to distinguish grammatical gender from natural gender, since the two do not always coincide. An often cited example of this is the German word Mädchen, which means "girl", but is treated grammatically as neuter. This is because it was constructed as the diminutive of Magd (archaic nowadays), and diminutive suffixes such as -chen conventionally place nouns in the "neuter" noun class.>>>>>>>

Very similar to what happened in Irish where the word cailín- girl, is masculine. It comes from caile (F, 4th declension)- wench + -ín the diminuitive suffix and became cailín, but because all nouns ending in -ín are masculine, cailín- girl is a masculine word.

I know that noun genders are theoretically useless, but I like them. I love being able to see the moon, the sun, rivers and the sea as feminine entities, and trees, fields etc as masculine ones.

In Irish, certain things are (almost) always feminine, languages (with the exception of English) countries (with the excpetion of America Canada and England), rivers (with the exception of an sruthán -án diminuitive ending). Whereas nationalities are always masculine.

<<it's a useless feature for a language to have since it adds no additional meaning to sentences.>>

I don't know, mate. I don't really think there's no additional meaning. I guess it just tells you if the performer is male or female. However sometimes a word can be grammaticaly male, but in reality female, I guess that happens in Romanian, please enlighten me.

<<I know, I'm a professional linguist. I just thought that 2992 asked about genders not only in Romanian but how genders are felt in other languages too. Sorry if I understood it wrong.>>

Oh, OK. So what are your thoughts about this issue in general? for English speakers, is it a difficult concept to understand?

P.S.- Linguist, I'm sorry if my answer was a bit agressive. I thought it was one more of those blokes saying that Romanian looks Slavic and should not be considered Romance, and I find that a bit annoying.

Pete from Peru