First off, they have three genders for nouns: Masculine(der), Feminine(die) and Neutral(das). Second EVERY noun has a gender: glove= der Handshuh, sock= die Socke, car= das Auto. And the funniest part about the whole thing is that the gender is not always obvious... in German a skirt is Masculine... so is a bra. But my favorite? Children are Neutral!! Yes they have no gender and are basically referred to in German as "its".
The gender assignment for people go like this:
Child (regardless of sex)
Neutral (das Kind)
Boy Girl
Masculine (der Junge) Neutral (das Mädchen)
Young Man Young Woman
Masculine (der junge Man) Neutral (das Fräulein)Man Married Woman
Masculine (der Man) Feminine (die Frau)
So ladies isn't it nice to know that in the German language you are not considered feminine until you are married... until then you are genderless. I can hear an entire generation of feminists howling at the thought.
That last bit is oldfashioned. Since the 1950th it's just "Frau" - married or not ;-)
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