Heard on the Olympics broadcast

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

Well da, konyeshno. And when the Russians refer to a female they say "ana."

------Original Message------
From: Cohen, Gerald Leonard
Sender: ADS-L
To: ADS-L
ReplyTo: ADS-L
Sent: Aug 10, 2008 6:07 PM
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Heard on the Olympics broadcast

The German diminutive suffix -chen (e.g., in Mädchen = girl) is the determining factor here. The nouns in which -chen appears must all be neuter, regardless of their gender in real life.

But the Germans are not unreasonable people, and when talking about a girl they will usually refer to her as "sie" (she), not "es" ("it"; neuter).

Gerald Cohen

________________________________

Ron Butters 8/10/2008 3:17 PM, wrote:

<snip> But every high school student who has ever studied German knows that a girl is neuter in that
language.

<snip>



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