• trafguy
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    7 months ago

    I didn’t learn of any rhyme or reason to it in German when I took classes on it. In fact, in a few cases, the gender changes the meaning of the word. Der See und die See, for example. One means lake and the other means sea/ocean.

    • ElmarsonTheThird@feddit.de
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      7 months ago

      There’s more shenanigans with “umfahren” and “umfahren”, where Intonation matters. One means “drive around”, the other “run over”.

      • Tvkan@feddit.de
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        7 months ago

        Also one is a strong and one is a weak verb, meaning that in certain cases, one will be split apart:

        Ich umfahre jemanden: I drive around someone.

        Ich fahre jemanden um: I run someone over.

    • sabreW4K3@lemmy.tfOP
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      7 months ago

      OMG, I’ve been doing my Duolingo lessons and never realised that they had different meanings, I just thought Germans used one word for all bodies of water 😭

      • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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        7 months ago

        “Die See” denotes an ocean, “der See” denotes a lake. You will more often hear “das Meer” instead of “die See” tho.