Tag Archives: gender
German ‘Language Police’ And Gender Neutrality Posted by Constanze on Feb 9, 2022
Guten Tag! Recently I wrote about the German Unwort des Jahres (‘Non-word of the year’) 2021, which you can read about here. I mentioned in that post that the runner-up was die Sprachpolizei, which literally means ‘language police’. This word was used in 2021 to defame those who were trying to make the German language…
How do you pronounce the gender-neutral German Gendersternchen? Posted by Sten on Jul 15, 2021
Gender-neutral language is being used more and more. Some cities have started using it, the University of Leipzig decided to use the weibliche Form (feminine form) as the basic form instead of the männliche Form (male form). This led to some “erhitzte Gemüter” (raised tempers). In Germany, the discussion about the use and necessity of gendered language is…
German Suffixes And Word Genders Posted by Constanze on Mar 31, 2021
Guten Tag! Today we’re revisiting the subject of German word genders (articles), and how you can recognise if German words are masculine (der), feminine (die) or neuter (das), by looking at their suffixes. Learning the genders of every single German noun is no small task – especially when there is no hard and fast rule…
Gender-Neutral German: Das Gendersternchen Posted by Constanze on Dec 18, 2019
Guten Tag! You may have seen words like this in German: Einwohner*innen, Mieter*innen, Lehrer*innen. What’s the little star in the middle all about? This is called the Gendersternchen, and it’s what we’re going to talk about in today’s post. As language learners soon find out, German is a very gendered language. That means, not only…
100 Years Of Women’s Suffrage In Germany Posted by Constanze on Jan 30, 2019
Guten Tag! There has been uproar in German politics recently because a German mayor was not invited to a charity event – simply because she is a woman. This comes shortly after Germany celebrated 100 years of women having the vote. Karoline Linnert is the finance senator and substitute mayor for the city of Bremen…
The German Diminutive Posted by Constanze on Dec 12, 2018
Guten Tag! Today I’m going to tell you about diminutives in German. Diminutives are words that are altered to express a smaller, younger or ‘cuter’ version of themselves. An example of an English diminutive is the word droplet, from the word drop, and the word booklet, from the word book. In English, words often become…
Is The German Language Sexist? Posted by Constanze on Aug 29, 2018
German has three genders for its nouns: der (masculine), die (feminine) and das (neuter). A common point of confusion amongst German language learners is why each noun has its assigned gender – especially when there is no pattern to it and/or its gender doesn’t appear to make sense. For example, a table in German is…