Strategies to remember the gender of German nouns

Learning the German language is a different ball game, it is not like English especially when it comes to the gender of nouns.

For someone who is at the beginner stage of learning the German language, learning the gender of nouns can be a challenge. This is because all German nouns are one of three genders: masculine, feminine or neutral. A beginner learning the language can find this confusing because the genders do not seem logical. For instance, even different cutlery has different genders, the fork is called die Gabel, the spoon is der Löffel (the spoon) and the knife is das, Messer.  Here die is feminine, der is masculine and das is neutral gender. Though this may sound confusing, it is necessary if you want to learn the language because gender is part of a noun’s identity.

When learning German, it is necessary to learn the gender of each noun as well. So, it is necessary to adopt a technique by which you can learn the genders of the nouns.  One way to do this is to try and speak in the language, the more you speak, you will get to know the mistakes you are making on gender and you will correct yourself.

Another effective technique is to visualize a situation with a gender-related memory figure. The trick is to connect new nouns to one of the three memory images while adding details and vivid information as you relate them to the situation. Visualization is a great tool to help you never again forget an article.

You can use three memory figures to represent the respective gender to create an image that is concrete and easy to visualise. So, the next time you learn a new noun, you just add one of those three figures to the meaning of the word and this will help you remember the gender of that word forever.

 Other tips to remember the gender of nouns:

Choose some Post-It notes-maybe pink for feminine words, blue for male words, and yellow for neutral. Label objects around the house, by the gender of each noun.

Buy some sparkly gel pens and use different colors to group together gendered words.

Guess the gender by relying on the context in which it is used.

These are some tips you can use to remember the gender of German nouns.

Make the most of your time at home. Avail online German language courses.

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