<<Spanish is very logical, it does not have those things.>>
Sure thing.
"El agua esta fria" is the most illogical sentence on Earth.
Sure thing.
"El agua esta fria" is the most illogical sentence on Earth.
illogicality and languages
I really don't understand why that sentence is illogical. Can you explain why it is so?
<<I really don't understand why that sentence is illogical. Can you explain why it is so? >>
Could it be that "agua" is feminine (illogical in itself), but needs the masculine article. At least English doesn't have grammatical gender.
Could it be that "agua" is feminine (illogical in itself), but needs the masculine article. At least English doesn't have grammatical gender.
If you use the plural pronoun it is Las aguas . El is used with a singular feminine noun if it begins with a. The goal of this is to avoid two consecutive a. Supposedly El agua sounds better than La agua. Probably you noticed that Spanish does not like solutions like L'agua, so El is used instead.
<<El is used with a singular feminine noun if it begins with a. >>
You have "La Habana", though -- doesn't the initial "a" sound have to be stressed, in order to require "el"?
You have "La Habana", though -- doesn't the initial "a" sound have to be stressed, in order to require "el"?
Yes but take into account that Habana begins with H , perhaps when this city was founded H was pronounced in Spanish. H used to be aspired in Spanish.
<<Yes but take into account that Habana begins with H >>
Sorry but this is not the reason. We use 'el' instead 'la' because the next word begins with 'a' which is stressed and Habana uses 'la' becasuse the accent falls on the second syllable,that is, 'ba' sylabell.
some of them can be masculine or femenine : el mar, la mar/ el radio(in many parts of America)/ la radio(in Spain for instance). It depends on your point of view.
But this only happen with objects or parts of the body and in this case too,there are more or less logical rules .
but that's not the point. Any language has illogities in its midst but you need to be a fortune-teller with some of them.
Sorry but this is not the reason. We use 'el' instead 'la' because the next word begins with 'a' which is stressed and Habana uses 'la' becasuse the accent falls on the second syllable,that is, 'ba' sylabell.
some of them can be masculine or femenine : el mar, la mar/ el radio(in many parts of America)/ la radio(in Spain for instance). It depends on your point of view.
But this only happen with objects or parts of the body and in this case too,there are more or less logical rules .
but that's not the point. Any language has illogities in its midst but you need to be a fortune-teller with some of them.
In spanish objects and parts of the body have gramatical-genre(sorry but this is how the language works) but of course they don't have genre in real life. So don't mix them.
'Guest' : « Could it be that "agua" is feminine (illogical in itself), but **NEEDS** the masculine article. At least English doesn't have grammatical gender. »
Le genre grammatical n'est pas illogique. Pas plus illogique que de mettre un <s> parfaitement inutile comme dans <needs>. Pourquoi ajouter un <s> à la 3e personne du singulier au présent alors que les 5 autres personnes s'en passent sans problème à tous les temps ? Comble de l'illogique, les occurrences suivantes sont interdites : *<cans>, *<mays>, *<musts>, *<shalls>, *<wills> etc.
Tout est relatif.
Si tu cherches quelque chose qui défie réellement la logique, prends plutôt le mot français <amour> : masculin au singulier et féminin au pluriel :
<le grand amour contrarié> → masculin
<les grandes amours contrariées> → féminin.
Le genre grammatical n'est pas illogique. Pas plus illogique que de mettre un <s> parfaitement inutile comme dans <needs>. Pourquoi ajouter un <s> à la 3e personne du singulier au présent alors que les 5 autres personnes s'en passent sans problème à tous les temps ? Comble de l'illogique, les occurrences suivantes sont interdites : *<cans>, *<mays>, *<musts>, *<shalls>, *<wills> etc.
Tout est relatif.
Si tu cherches quelque chose qui défie réellement la logique, prends plutôt le mot français <amour> : masculin au singulier et féminin au pluriel :
<le grand amour contrarié> → masculin
<les grandes amours contrariées> → féminin.
<<Le genre grammatical n'est pas illogique. Pas plus illogique que de mettre un <s> parfaitement inutile comme dans <needs>. Pourquoi ajouter un <s> à la 3e personne du singulier au présent alors que les 5 autres personnes s'en passent sans problème à tous les temps ? Comble de l'illogique, les occurrences suivantes sont interdites : *<cans>, *<mays>, *<musts>, *<shalls>, *<wills> etc.
>>
Well this has to do with history, not "adding" an '-s'.
We didn't one day wake up and decide: "Oh, let's add an '-s' to third person singular verbs, but not the other persons." Or, "Let's not '-s's to modal verbs. In such a case that *would* be illogical.
English verbal forms are "grandfathered" to us from ancient times when they DID make sense, and did flow with some form of logic.
Same for Spanish "la mano"--looks illogical on the surface or to the untrained, but it is not. There is history there explaning why it is so. One simply needs to search it out.
>>
Well this has to do with history, not "adding" an '-s'.
We didn't one day wake up and decide: "Oh, let's add an '-s' to third person singular verbs, but not the other persons." Or, "Let's not '-s's to modal verbs. In such a case that *would* be illogical.
English verbal forms are "grandfathered" to us from ancient times when they DID make sense, and did flow with some form of logic.
Same for Spanish "la mano"--looks illogical on the surface or to the untrained, but it is not. There is history there explaning why it is so. One simply needs to search it out.
<<Same for Spanish "la mano"--looks illogical on the surface or to the untrained, but it is not>>
Yes, you're right. mano comes from the latin word 'manus' which was femenine so it's an exception to the rule for historical reason(there are more exceptions but not many). Even in science there are exceptions but do they make a language illogical?
Yes, you're right. mano comes from the latin word 'manus' which was femenine so it's an exception to the rule for historical reason(there are more exceptions but not many). Even in science there are exceptions but do they make a language illogical?
<<
Le genre grammatical n'est pas illogique. Pas plus illogique que de mettre un <s> parfaitement inutile comme dans <needs>.
>>
English has lots of illogicalities, too, of course.
It's too bad English didn't get rid the that funny 's' ending when it had the chance. I think it'd be much nicer if every word in English were completely uninflected. In other words, no plurals, no verb endings, no -er, -est on adjectives, no inflected verb tenses, no 's for possessives, etc. Why have something like 'sink', 'sank', 'sunk', 'sunken' to indicate tense, when we can get along just fine with the (irregular) verb 'set', 'set', 'set'. Apparently, there's no real need for inflected tenses in English.
Le genre grammatical n'est pas illogique. Pas plus illogique que de mettre un <s> parfaitement inutile comme dans <needs>.
>>
English has lots of illogicalities, too, of course.
It's too bad English didn't get rid the that funny 's' ending when it had the chance. I think it'd be much nicer if every word in English were completely uninflected. In other words, no plurals, no verb endings, no -er, -est on adjectives, no inflected verb tenses, no 's for possessives, etc. Why have something like 'sink', 'sank', 'sunk', 'sunken' to indicate tense, when we can get along just fine with the (irregular) verb 'set', 'set', 'set'. Apparently, there's no real need for inflected tenses in English.