{"id":428,"date":"2015-06-03T02:38:57","date_gmt":"2015-06-03T00:38:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sprich-mit.com\/?p=428"},"modified":"2020-03-11T13:56:06","modified_gmt":"2020-03-11T12:56:06","slug":"derdiedas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sprich-mit.com\/de\/derdiedas\/","title":{"rendered":"2\/99 – Der, die, das?!"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong><\/p>\n


\n<\/strong>2 \u2013 Why do you have articles in German language?<\/strong> – Jakas from Lithuania<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cDer\u201d, \u201cdie\u201d or \u201cdas\u201d, \u201cein\u201d or \u201ceine\u201d?!?
\nArticles, but actually their declination according to gender, case and number they carry are challenging and annoying to many learners of German and a constant worry, including Mark Twain who grumbled a lot about them in his book \u201cThe Awful German Language\u201d.
\nSo why (the hell!) do articles exist, these annoying little words, were they invented to tease you?
\nI don\u2019t think so. Or at least I hope not and I know: articles do not only exist in German language. Most of the major world languages like Spanish, French, Portuguese and English have them. Like in these languages, also in German they are \u201ccompanions\u201d of nouns like \u201cAuto\u201d, \u201cBuch\u201d and \u201cFrau\u201d (car, book and woman) and clarify the meaning of a sentence. There are definite and indefinite articles, such as \u201cder\u201d and \u201cdie\u201d or \u201cein\u201d and \u201ceine\u201d. As companions, they clarify e. g. whether something is appearing for the first time, like a friend telling his mate \u201cIch habe eine Frau kennengelernt\u201d, just telling that there is a woman in his life; whereas he would say \u201cDie Frau ist einfach toll!\u201d after having told about her before. If you are an experienced user of German language, an article helps you understand very quickly what is meant. The described one is just one of several examples for their function.<\/p>\n

One most difficult point about German articles is the genders. Most of them do not make sense in fact and there is no logical explanation. \u201cDer Tisch\u201d and why not \u201cdie Tisch\u201d, \u201cdas Glas\u201d and why not \u201cder Glas\u201d? This is similar in lots of languages, like Spanish, French and Portuguese. They all have genders expressed in articles which do not make sense, either. But it is special to German and some other languages that there are not only two but three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter.
\nThe true reason why a lot of words have a certain gender where it does not make sense is to be searched in the language history. Apparently the Indo-European original language, out of which most European languages developed in the last 5000 years, did not have the articles. As I read, Greek language is the oldest language that had articles. Appartently it made sense to our ancestors to use articles.<\/p>\n

Looking at other languages, articles are not the only way to express gender, number and case of nouns. The Balkan or Scandinavian languages for example do not have articles, but affixes; this means they express gender, number and case by adding certain endings to the nouns. Others, like Japanese as an example, do not have any of these.
\nUsing articles with their declinations is the German language’s way to “transport” three pieces of information at once – you have little “bombs of information”. Maybe it fits to German people or at least to their reputation \u2013 Germans are to be very exact and detailed. German is a \u201clow-context language\u201d. This means, Germans are said to learn from childhood to communicate directly and say what they mean. \u201cYes\u201d means \u201cyes\u201d and \u201cno\u201d means \u201cno\u201d. You want to describe things as exactly as possible. You can describe things in a very detailed way and \u201cthere is a word for everything\u201d as I heard Abbas Khider an Iraqi-German writer say in a public reading. There is not too much room left for a doubt what the other person means. In this language and culture, articles and their declination fit in well, don’t they?<\/p>\n

All in all, articles developped in language history of German and are there to transport meaning. The tough nut to crack when learning German is that when using an article you have to be very careful and think of three different points which are number, gender and case. But do not let these little words tease you! Luckily there are some mnemotechniques that make life easier.<\/p>\n

Foto: https:\/\/goo.gl\/SW56kg<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2 \u2013 Why do you have articles in German language? – Jakas from Lithuania \u201cDer\u201d, \u201cdie\u201d or \u201cdas\u201d, \u201cein\u201d or \u201ceine\u201d?!? Articles, but actually their declination according to gender, case and number they carry are challenging and annoying to many learners of German and a constant worry, including Mark Twain who grumbled a lot about … Weiterlesen<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":695,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[11],"class_list":["post-428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-99-questions-project","tag-derdiedas"],"yoast_head":"\nDer, die, das?! - SPRICHMIT<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Why does German language use articles and genders?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sprich-mit.com\/de\/derdiedas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Der, die, das?! 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