Well, as a German, I wouldn’t agree. Generally, nouns describing men are masculine and nouns describing women are feminine. “Das Mädchen” is just an odd one out because it’s the diminutive (always neuter in German) of “die Maid”, which in turn is feminine.
Yes, this doesn’t really apply to objects, but it mostly does for people.
Well, you’re arguing terminology. But the original commenter’s point was about the association of grammatical gender with gender, and that is definitely a thing in German.
Der Arzt (Male doctor) -> die Ärztin (female doctor) is an example where the grammatical gender changes with the gender of the person, and that’s almost always the case.
Well, as a German, I wouldn’t agree. Generally, nouns describing men are masculine and nouns describing women are feminine. “Das Mädchen” is just an odd one out because it’s the diminutive (always neuter in German) of “die Maid”, which in turn is feminine.
Yes, this doesn’t really apply to objects, but it mostly does for people.
Sure, there’s some correlation - but when 99% of words in a noun class can’t have a biological gender it seems weird to name it after the 1%.
Well, you’re arguing terminology. But the original commenter’s point was about the association of grammatical gender with gender, and that is definitely a thing in German.
Der Arzt (Male doctor) -> die Ärztin (female doctor) is an example where the grammatical gender changes with the gender of the person, and that’s almost always the case.