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why (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/memes@sopuli.xyz
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[–] 20 points 7 months ago (3 children)

In French, it's 'le pénis,' but nobody says that. 'Dick,' is feminine (la bite.)

Also, 'vagina' is masculine, but 'pussy' is feminine, because if you were to say 'le chat' it would mean a cat, but by feminising the word, it becomes 'la chatte,' meaning pussy.

As someone who grew up Anglophone, I actually find gendered languages much more precise. On the other hand, in order to make yourself understood one must have a rich vocabulary, because the definitions of words are often more narrow than in English.

And don't even get me started on phrasal verbs... English is messy.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    I don't get the weirdness of phrasal verbs? It's a basic staple of every Indoeuropean language to generate verbs by tacking on prepositions. Ok, it's a bit weird to use prepositions after the word, but that's just standard Germanic separable verbs that are a bit regulized. So what?

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    They're just so ubiquitous in English. In my experience, people coming from the Romance languages have a very hard time with them, because most of the actions they describe are a single verb in their mother tongues. Imagine having to remember what two words mean, but then also having to remember that when you use the two words together, they form a distinct, sometimes even unrelated, meaning.

    And there's thousands.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    Well, Romance languages have thousands, too, like e.g. French poser and sup-poser, dé-poser, re-poser, trans-poser, pro-poser, im-poser, ex-poser, pré-poser, anté-poser, op-poser, super-poser, com-poser, juxta-poser, ap-poser, dis-poser, postposer,

    If I call up a random French or Spanish article on wikipedia, a decent amount, if not the majority of verbs (not counting auxilliary verbs) are compounds. Somehow Romance speakers seem to have lost the ability to spot them, a Mexican coworker of mine was absolutely convinced Spanish does not have compound verbs as well.

    Oh – I see. The Romance prepositions have changed. Knowing Latin I cannot not recognise the loads of compound verbs, but with sur, de, derriere, travers, par, en, hors, avant and so on the compounds are not recognisable any longer and our poor Romance friends have to learn all the words by themselves instead of nice semilogical groups.

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