Der, die, das - secrets, patterns or just chaos?
Dealing with one of the most intractable topics in the German language, the gender of nouns, we now have two interesting books analysing this major hurdle for language learners in a quest for “secret rules”.
Mark Twain famously complained that in German “Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by heart. There is no other way.” [The Awful German Language (1880)]. But is there in fact another way to master this conundrum, admitted even by native speakers of German to be problematic?
Professor Martin Durrell, author of the leading Hammer’s German Grammar and Usage (Sixth edition, 2017) still recommends that foreign learners use the “ideal method” of learning German nouns together with their definite article, but notes that there are “useful clues” as to gender. Using modern computer techniques in Mannheim, with a database of literally billions of German words analysed, he estimated that the gender “of about 80% of German nouns can be predicted”, although he warns of many exceptions, particularly local and regional dialectical versions, “double genders” with two meanings according to article, and of the word “Joghurt” which can be der or das or even occasionally die!
These two authors have also used computer analysis in an effort to flush out further underlying structures and claim they have unearthed “secrets” which can assist the learner.
Constantin Vayenas, Der, Die, Das: The Secrets of German Gender (1917, second edition 2019) is an erudite book, with the author being able to draw on his knowledge of Greek and Latin to solve some of the linguistic mysteries. He distils his analysis from the formidable 16 million German words in the Duden language database, although noting the fluidity of the language when “the Duden Fremdwörterbuch made 199 changes to the gender of nouns between its 1960 and 1977 editions”. The author’s bifurcation into two principal “rules” - these are “categories” and “sounds” - is then amply illustrated with listings. Patterns of all three genders are separately explored, with some thoughtful commentary. Then there are final sections on nouns which are “one or the other”, “nouns with more than one gender” and even “nouns with no gender”. The book was originally for English learners of German, but its deserved popularity has led to further editions in many languages, including even one for German readers! This is a superb book, though perhaps not for the early beginner and perhaps not always for the faint-hearted, with its rules and sub-rules. But it is an excellent piece of research and mighty useful as a reference too.
Norbert Racskó, The Secret Rules of Der, Die, Das (2024) claims that he has “resolved Humankind’s greatest mystery”, which is “ the correct use of der, die, das articles”. A very colourful book, the author’s “40 Secret rules nobody teaches you” is aimed squarely at a fun approach with a “Zoo of Rules”. With blue for masculine, red for feminine and orange for neuter words the exceptions stand out clearly. Explanations are accompanied by a mythical “Dr Jürgen Hase”, a linguistic rabbit “born with three ears which made him realise that getting the right article out of the three possible options is a major challenge”. With plenty of jokey asides in bubble captions by Dr Hase this is a text clearly aimed at the author’s daughters, but with several memorable visual ideas. One can occasionally cavil at a blanket statement, for example that “100% of words ending in -ung are feminine”… what about der Dung, der Schwung, der Sprung usw [all listed of course as exceptions to the general rule by Constantin Vayenas]? But inevitably this pedantry might be getting into perhaps excessive detail, which this author is keen to avoid, focussing just on “the 2,200 most common words”. One of Professor Paul Nation’s twenty language learning activities is “Do lots of easy reading each week” [What do you need to know to learn a foreign language (2014)], so although this book was no doubt initially targeted at children with its bright colours, rabbit jokes and purposeful simplifications, it would be well worth a read by adult learners.