Spanish

[Nukchebi0]

For what purpose are nouns in Spanish gender-related?

My Spanish teacher couldn't answer that.

[ncscswitch]

I am not sure there IS a purpose.

Spanish, French and several other languages are all latin derived and have genders for all nouns.

No idea why, but they do, and it dates from a LONG time ago

(best answer this person who failed French more than once can give)

[Nukchebi0]

Okay, thanks.

[MechanizedWarfare]

Thats one part about Spanish that I really dislike.  Ive been speaking Spanish since I was about 5 years old, and I always have asked the same question that Nukchebi0 asked.  No one could give me a straight up answer.

(best answer this person who failed French more than once can give)

I dont blame you.  The French language sucks.  Its easier to learn Spanish actually, especially if you live in the SW USA.  Every other person here is Mexican, and if they look white, they are probaly half-mexican. 

[balungaloaf]

i take russian courses---same way, what the hell is up with people.  Damn languages are confusing.

[Jermofoot]

I dont blame you.  The French language sucks.  Its easier to learn Spanish actually, especially if you live in the SW USA.  Every other person here is Mexican, and if they look white, they are probaly half-mexican. 

I've found French, Spanish, Italian all to be the same difficulty.  You could easily live in Louisana, or Quebec and feel the same way about French.  I'd say it's probably more to your benefit to know Spanish, though.

[cystic crypt]

I dont blame you.  The French language sucks.  Its easier to learn Spanish actually, especially if you live in the SW USA.  Every other person here is Mexican, and if they look white, they are probaly half-mexican. 

I've found French, Spanish, Italian all to be the same difficulty.  You could easily live in Louisana, or Quebec and feel the same way about French.  I'd say it's probably more to your benefit to know Spanish, though.

Francais?  C'est pas dificile.
Portuguese - esta uma langue muito dificile.

[Sankt Hallvard]

i take russian courses---same way, what the hell is up with people.  Damn languages are confusing.

It's the same with norwegian and german as well. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if english was the only language where nouns were NOT gender-related. I've stopped being amazed by how narrow-sighted americans are on these things. Gotta love your "World Series"..

 

[Jermofoot]

I looked this up some more, and can't really give you a quick and dirty answer.  There are noun classes, like animate and inanimate (I think the Egyptians gave things proper names), and the Romance languages classfication is simply called gender (class), and that it could be called 1,2,3, or A,B,C.  It's introduction was arbitrary, possibly the product of someone being creative with an older language, and was incorporated with grammatical agreement - making adjectives agree with nouns by gender.
But languages are VERY interesting.  Thinking about learning Japanese.

[OLver]

My main language is french. When I was younger and didn't speak english, i found it very funny to see english people talking french and not using the proper genre for a noun.
To me it was so "normal" that  a chair was femenine gender when a boat was a male...
Now, I realise how strange it is to give a gener to nouns. I guess it's because we are  french 

[MechanizedWarfare]

I dont blame you.  The French language sucks.  Its easier to learn Spanish actually, especially if you live in the SW USA.  Every other person here is Mexican, and if they look white, they are probaly half-mexican. 

I've found French, Spanish, Italian all to be the same difficulty.  You could easily live in Louisana, or Quebec and feel the same way about French.  I'd say it's probably more to your benefit to know Spanish, though.

Francais?  C'est pas dificile.
Portuguese - esta uma langue muito dificile.

Portuguese is pretty much a retarded version of Spanish, because I was able to understand it.

Portuguese - esta uma langue muito dificile = Portuguese - its a very difficult language

[frimmel]

But languages are VERY interesting.  Thinking about learning Japanese.

I think it would be to anyones benefit to be multilingual. We had some problems recently with engineering drawings from Japan where I work. The planning department was only half joking when they complained that it was engineering's (my dept.) job to learn Japanese and to read Japanese characters. They were only half joking when they said the same thing about some German, French, Spanish and Italian drawings. I wasn't joking when I asked if it would pay more.

I have often read things like language is the key to understanding people, the one thing you can't hide is your use of language. If we found an answer to why nouns have gender I'm sure we would have a new insight into those whose native language is Spanish or French or...

[cystic crypt]

The thing about Portuguese is that it is reasonably easy to understand when you are reading it.  Especially if you are already schooled in another Romance-language. 
It's listening to and speaking it that gets tricky.  It's kind of like the Russian version of Spanish, i'd guess.  Except for Brazillian Portuguese - for some reason these speakers sound more like how the language is written, and it's a much more melodious-sounding language as well.  Kind of pretty.

[Janus1]

Jermofoot-
日本語を勉強�る��好���。�れ�勉強�る���第四年��。��も�も�����よ。
nihongo o benkyosuru no ga sukidesu. korewa benkyosuru no watashi no yonbannendesu. totemo omoshiroidesuyo.
I like studying Japanese. This is my fourth year studying it. Its very interesting, I assure you.

It really is a great language. It is a more difficult language than pretty much any other (Chinese, Hungarian and Finnish being possible exceptions), but its not overly difficult, and its fun and interesting. I reccomend it.

[Jermofoot]

I'm thinking Chinese might be also a good idea...just like Spanish is currently.  But I've heard the same things from others, Janus, so I think you sold me.