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.

Rambling

There must be a large Ethiopian community in Jerusalem. And it seems they're always getting married. What size population would be necessary to have one wedding per month? Or so it seems. They do it big, with a professional cameraman and sometimes a big limousine.

But what really impresses me is how they dress. The men all look very smart in white shirts and black jeans. Or to really dress up, they wear all white, with a shiny colored vest and a matching colored strip on their trousers. The women, likewise, wear very nice clothes. Frequently they wear dresses of lightweight crinkled off-white muslin with strips of very colorful embroidery, with a shawl/head covering of the same light material.

I'm not clear on the differences between their Shabbat clothing, or wedding clothing, or everyday clothing, because I only see them on Shabbat, and there are a lot of weddings.

Elsewhere, anything goes. Well, not quite anything. In general women in Jerusalem are probably more modest than in the U.S. Especially in the more religious communities. Among the men, the word is "casual." Even in kehilot, men can be seen wearing shorts and T-shirts with writing on them. And of course, it's hot, and in hot weather you have to wear less. ?? Not me--I don't feel any cooler having the sun beat on my bear skin. Whoops, I mean bare skin. In some circles, they say we should honor the Sabbath by wearing nicer clothes than we wear during the week. In other places, they continually quote "God looks on the heart," so you are pre-emptively barred from saying anything about their shoddy appearance.

So, I try to be more concerned about what's really on people's hearts than what they look like. It's really important to do this, because Jerusalem is a very mixed environment. You can get into lively conversations about the Bible and religion. You find that people's experiences are so different from your own. It is a good exercise to not be around people who agree with you on everything. It makes you value what you have received, but also ready to examine everything in a new light. The body of Christ is one, and each member is necessary.

But really, black is black, and white is white, right? Not necessarily. Now I am going to ramble on about colors. What we consider pure white in America is not necessarily considered pure white somewhere else. Our "pure" is sort of cold, theirs is warm.

And they say that the colors you wear reflect your personality. If you wear bold, bright colors, you are outgoing, or positive, or confident, or something like that (and they imply also that you're supposed to be outgoing and postive and exuding confidence). If you like gray and brown, you are, well, not very interesting.

Disagree. Flat disagree. When I see someone dressed very plainly, which is not very often, I look twice. Because you have to look twice to determine what color you are seeing.

What I especially like are light neutrals. So light and so neutral that you can't quite define what the colors are. So I have a colorless personality. Don't think so. But if you want to pass colorless me by, that's okay, I appreciated your flash of blue or your red and orange stripes while you were here.

Let's  see, where was I going with this? Oh, I guess I didn't have any particular aim. Just wandering. That's a nice word. It means you aren't on a straight, pre-determined path, and don't particular care where you end up. However, after wandering aimlessly for a while, sometimes it's nice to go back home. Which reminds me, I need to hang my Andrew Wyeth.

Music is Magic

I looked and looked for the version that I originally listened to of Psalm 91 in Romanian, but it seems to have been taken down. There are other versions with the same words and different tunes, but they're not as good.

So here's the next best. Good words, good tune, acapella.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj84AKnaXhA
versificare: Traian DORZ
muzica: Nicolae Moldoveanu

It is odd how this song affects me, and I know only the tiniest bit of Romanian. Especially when they sing "Dumnezeul meu în care mă încred şi voi scăpa."

Quite amazing that there are so many of the Psalms in Romanian in verse form.

German oven racks

I thought all the case endings in German would be the hardest part. As it turns out, they're not that crucial. Because even if you make lots of mistakes with cases, you can still get the main meaning.

Another problem is all the rules for word order. But that's fairly logical, once you get used to it.

The hardest part is the verbs and all their separable and inseparable prefixes. I have a hard time seeing any connection between the base word and the resulting meanings you get after adding a prefix. It seems I will have to just memorize every single verb.

The next hurdle is learning the gender of nouns. This has turned out harder than I expected. There are several guidelines that give you a pretty good idea for many words, but there are many you just have to memorize. I memorize them by making pictures in my mind, and by associating similar words of the same gender.
If fluss, river, is masculine, then you know also that Bach, brook will also be masculine. Same with mountain and hill, Berg and Hügel. Many weather words are masculine. Thunder and lightning (der Donner, der Blitz) are both masculine, as well as rain, hail, snow, fog, wind and sunshine. (der Regen, der Hagel, der Schnee, der Nebel, der Wind and der Sonnenschein.

If Kuh, cow, is feminine, and she is, then you know that milch, milk, is, too. And also Ziege, goat, because she also gives milk. Die Kuh, die Milch, die Ziege.
Other things are feminine because they spread or reproduce or multiply or extend. Butter (die Butter) is feminine because it spreads. Die Fabrik, factory is feminine because it produces a million pencils. Die Bank -- Banks spread (they have branches). Die Flut, the flood, is when the water spreads.
Potatoes multiply. You plant one and in the fall after the leaves die down, you have no idea what is under the surface until you stick in your Shaufel, which is feminine, and you turn up all the Kartoffeln underneath. I hang a string of feminine glocken, bells, on my feminine shovel to celebrate the occasion.

Neuter nouns sometimes group together conveniently, such as house/Haus, window/Fenster, and table/Tisch. Glass and water, Glas und Wasser. The folk/das Volk in the village/das Dorf, plant grass/das Gras on the grave/das Grab.
Things that are unbearably cute, animals/Tieren, Babies/Babys, children/Kinder, and little girls/ Mädchen, are neuter, because their cuteness surpasses any idea of gender.
Basic shapes are neuter -- das Dreieck, das Viereck, and das Achteck.
Basic materials are neuter -- das Kupfer, das Gold, das Metall, das Holtz, das Papier, das Leder, das Garn, das Feuer, das Eis (copper, gold, metal, wood, paper, leather, yarn, fire, ice.)
Basic necessities are neuter -- egg, bread, book, bath, bed -- Ei, Brot, Buch, Bad, Bett. As well as life and light -- das Leben, das Licht. And if you like, auto, money and internet (Auto, Geld, Internet). For me, das Piano or das Klavier.

Parts of the body are all different, but it is not hard to group together eye, ear, and face, das Auge, das Ohr, and das Gesicht. For other neuters, think of sitting with your chin on your knee -- Kinn and Knie are both neuter. Also leg, das Bein.
For feminine it's hand, fist, and shoulder, die Hand, die Faust, and die Schulter. Put your fist on your nose to remember die Nase.
That leaves back, stomach, thumb, finger, head, which are masculine. Picture yourself pinching your belly with your thumb and finger (your Bauch with your Daumen and Finger), while you try to bend your head (der Kopf) to touch your back (der Rücken).
So you can see, if you know the gender of one word, with these pictures in your mind, you can remember the gender of several others.

You can associate masculine words to a man, feminine words to a woman. You have to do this with knife, fork and spoon because they are all different.
So you picture a huge knife (das Messer) on the wall of das Haus, which you already know is neuter.
Dad uses the spoon (der Löffel) to stir his coffee (der Kaffee). Mom holds the fork (die Gabel) because it's a tuning fork and she using it to tune her violin (die Geige).

By the way, did you know that oven racks are very musical?
Hang one on a string, ding the rack, and listen to the sound traveling from the string to your ear.
Amazing! I dare you to try it! Also set a ticking clock on the piano bench (or a wooden table) and put your ear to the table. Good for home-schooling moms to demonstrate how sound travels through a solid.

What's the Point

I'm not sure what the point of this post is, but I feel like posting it.

treptat - gradually (Romanian)
treppe - stairs (German)
trip - to step lightly (English)

And of course, Tripping up the Stairs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGin6mh6Rsg

An Experiment

I tried being normal once...

It was the Worst Day of my Life!!

Trouble Tuesday

First the smell. Bliyeckhhhh!!! And they call it "cleaning" the floor in the hallway. It seeps into my living room and into my kitchen and coats my eggs with rotting hyacinth smell. So I sit on the balcony to eat. The patio door is wide open, in order to let lots of fresh air into my apartment. But it also creates a current of air exiting the apartment, so I have to sit in just the right spot and keep my face in the right direction so as to not smell it.

And then the world situation and personal disappointments weigh heavily on me.
This is going to be a very bad day. I think I will run away. Actually, that's the most logical thing to do. Either that or I could bury myself in language study to avoid thinking. But that gets old after a while. So instead...

I'm going to take myself out for pizza!

So I will have to rush, rush, rush to do a ton of laundry and housework. And then, kosher pizza, here I come!