German Feminine Nouns

Learning the gender of nouns is still annoying me. It annoys me because it's not terribly complex, like adjective cases and relative pronouns and dependent clauses, but it's still too hard.

My method is to start with the assumption that every noun is masculine unless there is some indication otherwise. If it ends in an "e" or an -in or a -heit or an -ung or a -shaft, it is probably feminine. But if it doesn't, you need some way of knowing.

I start with the assumption it's masculine till I find out it's not, and the minute I found out it's feminine, it immediately starts to stretch, spread, extend, or repeat. If you start with schlacht, a battle, it's surely masculine, is it not? But then I find out it's feminine and it spreads out into a field with many bodies falling, and many puffs of smoke in the air.

Botschaft, a message, ought to be masculine, brought by swift runner. But when I find out it's feminine, it turns into a multitude of dots and dashes as if being sent by Morse code.

Frist, a period of time or a deadline, as a masculine word looks like a single solid object or a definite boundary. But as soon as I learn it's feminine, it reminds me of the broken line at the center of the road whizzing by. Many, many stripes, many, many deadlines have flown by.

Die Luft, the air, spreads over the whole earth. Ader, vein, as feminine stretches out long. Schrift, writing, stretches across the page and contains multiple characters.

A city as a big, ugly polluted thing could be masculine, but as soon as it becomes feminine, it is a collection of rooftops. Auswahl, selection, involves several items to choose from. So you could say feminine is the closest thing to plural without being plural. Uhr, a clock, is feminine with that plural aspect because it wouldn't be a clock without more than one number on it. Ankunft, arrival, is when Aunt Mary appears on your doorstep for a visit. But wait, she came on a plane, where there are arrivals every minute. Again, a concept of pluralness.

This only works if you start with the idea of masculine, and not if you approach a word with the idea it could be either one. That way, the moment you find that it's feminine, your mind makes this shift into a different concept of the word, and that helps you remember.

Furcht, fear. Dark and dangerous, like a bad man. But no, it's not just a particular fear, but magor-misaviv, fear all around. See, it's spreading again, so it's feminine. Die Trommel, drum. A drum wouldn't be necessary for just a single thump. It's a multiplicity of beats.

And of course, there's still the method of connecting things. I learned night, die Nacht, which, like Luft, spreads calmly over everything. But Finsternis, darkness, surely is neuter, like a lot of -nis words. But since it turns out to be feminine, I connect it with die Nacht, and they are always together.