When new students who are beginners learn about gender in German, it usually doesn’t take long before somebody asks “How come a girl is neuter in German?” They are puzzled because they do know that girls are females, so why do we say ‘das Mädchen‘?
The main and most important reason is that Mädchen ends in ‘chen’ and nouns which are diminutives and end in ‘chen’ are always neuter. This is one of the easiest gender rule to remember. For example: Das Brot – bread/ das Brötchen – bread roll (little bread) Der Korb – basket/ das Körbchen – little basket Das Haus – house/ das Häuschen – little house, cottage Der Hase – hare, das Häschen – little cute hare Das Kaninchen – cute little hoppy thing, I mean, rabbit Das Meerschweinchen – the cute little pig that came from over the sea, guinea pig
From a historic point of view it must have made sense to have the word for girl as neuter because in those days only boys were important and girls didn’t count until they were married. Even young unmarried women were unimportant, hence they were addressed as ‘Fräulein’ (Words ending in the diminutive ‘lein’ are also always neuter).
Only when a woman got married was she useful and therefore became a ‘Frau’ which is feminine (die Frau).
The word Fräulein hasn’t been used for over 40 years (unless you use it to make a little girl feel grown-up). Once a girl reaches adulthood, she is addressed as Frau.Just like the address Herr doesn’t tell us whether a man is married or not, we don’t need to know if the woman is aFrauor Fräulein.
As for girls, the word Mädchen is still neuter for two reasons, a) because it ends in ‘chen’, b) because nouns ending in ‘chen’ don’t change in the plural. By saying das Mädchen, we know it’s one girl, whereas die Mädchen is more than one.
There is one compromise, though. If we wanted to say ‘The girl is little. She is called Lisa and she lives in Berlin’ we should say ‘Das Mädchen ist klein. Es heißt Lisa und es wohnt in Berlin‘. That would be grammatically correct and is still sometimes used, because the personal pronoun for neuter nouns is ‘es’.
What you most likely would hear, is: ‘Das Mädchen ist klein. Sie heißt Lisa und sie wohnt in Berlin‘.
The main and most important reason is that Mädchen ends in 'chen' and nouns which are diminutives and end in 'chen' are always neuter. This is one of the easiest gender rule to remember.
Nouns ending in -chen and -lein are always neuter and are used for the diminutive in German, which is used to express the fact that something is small, either in an affectionate or belittling sense.
Mädchen is typically used to refer to young women up to the age of 30. Past this age it is uncommon (unlike English girl) – the related term Mädel is more widely used colloquially for adult women.
Originally Answered: Why is “the girl” “das Mädchen” and not “die Madchen”? Because of the diminutive “chen". The word it modifies is “die Maid", the maiden, which is feminine, but the diminutive always changes the gender to the neuter “das".
You've got it, Das It Ever End: German has three grammatical gender categories! That der (the) goes with masculine nouns, die (also means "the") with feminine, and das (...the) is for neuter nouns.
In German, the word for "girl" das Mädchen, is neutral. Surprising? The reason has to do with how the word is formed. The -chen ending is a diminutive suffix: a variation of a word that emphasizes its small size or precious quality.
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Articles for words in these categories are das (the) and ein (a or an): Nouns ending in -chen or -lein: fräulein, häuschen, kaninchen, mädchen (unmarried woman, cottage, rabbit, girl/maiden). Infinitives used as nouns (gerunds): das essen, das schreiben (eating, writing).
Except for Slavic languages, three is the maximum number of grammatical genders, i.e. noun classes, in Indo-European languages. The history of those three genders is that feminine nouns used to be adjectives used as nouns, masculine nouns are agents (things that do things) and neuter nouns are everything else.
If you look closer at the german word for “young lady”, you will notice the following: “das Mädchen” does have a gender called "neuter" – which is indicated by the article “das”.
German has three genders because in German,having three classes of words best suits the ways that words were imported and then configured into grammar and language usage without being overwhelming. system, regardless of content of earlier compounds in a compound word.
Introduction: My name is Chrissy Homenick, I am a tender, funny, determined, tender, glorious, fancy, enthusiastic person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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