Comments on: gender reassignment http://petiteanglaise.com/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/ Mon, 10 Oct 2011 07:58:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: OJ http://petiteanglaise.com/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-230 Wed, 06 Oct 2004 09:33:38 +0000 http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-230 Ohh I remember my (beginners’) French classes at uni – not only could I not work out noun genders (who cares if a ship is a he or a she!), I couldn’t even pronounce “un” and “une” properly, which used to drive our teacher up the wall!

So much so that he left us after a term to go back to his degree-level students, and we got someone who taught French at kindergarten level :-)

These days (the BF’s mother is French so we go over regularly) I just steamroll my way through, caring nought for genders or tenses – and I’m sure I get away with it because I’m “foreign” and therefore not expected to know better!

]]> By: petite anglaise http://petiteanglaise.com/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-229 Sat, 02 Oct 2004 16:04:07 +0000 http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-229 Don’t get me started on german. They went and ‘reformed’ their spellings and removed all the umlauts to fox me…

]]> By: heather http://petiteanglaise.com/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-228 Sat, 02 Oct 2004 09:23:39 +0000 http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-228 Ah and I have the fun of German which has three genders and confusingly a young woman Maedchen is das – neuter. A skirt is masculine – couple this with the Swiss German dialect and I find it easier to just point at things and grunt.

]]> By: madge http://petiteanglaise.com/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-227 Sat, 02 Oct 2004 08:10:30 +0000 http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-227 liam, don’t try portuguese then, it’s got more diminutives than you could shake a (masculine) stick at. though generally they keep their gender once diminished(?!) there are dozens of potential endings that anyone can put on ANYTHING (nouns, adverbs, adjectives) at will that make absolutely no sense to anyone but themselves – obrigidinha pelos livrinhos para a minha pequenote, Ela é mà zona e um bocadinho rabugentita mas este livro lindíssimo tem dentro umas pernocas bonitinhas – (that made no sense after the first line, but hey, I make it up as I go along) ;)
apologies to anyone portuguese reading that thinking, “jeez…she will have to be expelled from the country.

]]> By: Liam http://petiteanglaise.com/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-226 Fri, 01 Oct 2004 07:35:04 +0000 http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-226 I sympathize will you entirely, those genders should ne abolished. I have had a similar experience speaking Dutch – which curiously boasts a vast number of diminuti ves (e.g. a cup kop becomes a cuppie kopje). This is only found with proper nouns in English, I think. Each diminutive takes the neutral form. Dutch is so weird that it doesn’t even sound incongruous. Maybe French has something equally wonderful to offer. It’s also well worth trying to categorize the damn things. It might be, for example, that nearly all animals have the same gender.

But hey, how about some EU-wide legislation for the simplification of European languages – shouldn’t we be thinking in the longer term?

]]> By: Tony S http://petiteanglaise.com/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-225 Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:46:26 +0000 http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-225 I remember a comment by a French diplomat about a British politician: “C’est un con, mais il a ni le charme ni la profondeur.” Surely the 1st noun should be feminine – & the last 2 don’t sound right, either.

PS Anyone remember exactly who said it? Google has failed me.

]]> By: Sylvia http://petiteanglaise.com/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-224 Thu, 30 Sep 2004 05:24:51 +0000 http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-224 Must admit to laughing out loud at this post – I especially remember the odd looks from French colleagues during business meetings if I got the gender of somehting wrong. They have no conception on how difficult it is for us Brits to need to remember the gender as well as the noun. Mind you if you were to learn chinese, it’s all in the intonation – how the hell can you learn that I wonder….

]]> By: emilie [mimile] http://petiteanglaise.com/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-223 Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:09:50 +0000 http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-223 Speaking of blank looks, when I go to a bakery over here and ask for a “muffin”, I get the look; when I ask for a cup of Earl Grey, I get the look, plus a “oooohhhhh a cup of eaaarl greeeeyyyy”. Same for chocolate [I still pronounce it sometime chocol8...]
And people feel thay have to speak to me louder, and as if I was 5 years old. Typically british!
:)

]]> By: Van http://petiteanglaise.com/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-222 Wed, 29 Sep 2004 10:07:11 +0000 http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-222 Thank god I could give up French after 7th Grade. I never got much past “Janvier, Fevrier”, that, and I was constantly in detention for cutting French class anyway. Although looking at my lack of grammer in my first sentence in this comment, makes my poor English teacher turn in her grave (and it’s my first language). I am mucho impressado at your ability to adapt in another culture by the way, and love the new site too.

]]> By: ViVi http://petiteanglaise.com/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-221 Wed, 29 Sep 2004 09:31:28 +0000 http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2004/09/28/gender-issues_2/#comment-221 As frustrating as it is (learning the genders), I get the biggest kick out of my husband assigning genders in english. I can’t help it – no matter how serious the conversation as soon as he replaces “it” with “she” I have to suppress a giggle.

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