this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
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English doesn't even has definite articles.
This is giving me stress daymares about Spanish in high school.
Still, it's an interesting point you make.
But then again, with definitive articles you have a bunch of things that are not supposed to convey gender conveying gender. Like a toaster... It would suck to have to remember the gender of a toaster, or, well toasters in general.
It's "der Toaster" which makes it masculine. On the other hand, a girl ("das Mädchen") is neuter. The grammatical gender is somewhat arbitrary and does not follow any "real" rules.
As a German you somehow "feel" if the correct article is used, though.
Embarrassingly for someone whose native language is german, I often use the masculine when the neuter should have been used, because they feel the same to me. I never was taught any formal grammar in german, though, so that might play a role.