I prefer dealing with complicated but ultimately rule-based stuff like は/が over the utter nonsense that is grammatical gender (and I’m German).
Edit: and because I see heated discussion about it elsewhere: grammatical gender is a very convenient thing to have (not to learn) and I wouldn’t abolish it (just wouldn’t want to learn it).
“Bob took his hat out of the bag and dropped it.” What did he drop?
“Bob nahm seinen Hut aus der Tasche und ließ sie fallen.” “Bob took his male hat out of the female bag and dropped her.” Ah, he dropped the bag!
There’s better examples, I’m sure, but having gendered pronouns makes references clearer than everything just being “it”. It’s a way to structure sentences that may not be vital to understanding (because obviously there are languages that work perfectly fine without it) but makes it easier. Like capitalising nouns or clear rules for where to put commas can make reading easier.
That only works if they have different genders. Which is often not the case in most gendered languages.
“Bob sacó su manzana de la caja y la dejó caer.”
Bob took his female apple out of his female box and let it (female) fall
Also from my experience growing and going to school in a gender language (not Spanish btw), grammar classes are way more intense and thorough than for something like English. Most people don’t really have grammar classes in English speaking countries, while I studied it until the last year of high school…
More complex grammar certainly makes it more difficult to learn, even for native speakers.
That’s the thing, it’s only an effort if you’re actively learning the language. Natives think about the gender of nouns only in certain, rare edge-cases that are ill-defined, like loanwords or “artificial” words (Nutella is gender-fluid). It would make more sense to just define those edge-cases than to try to get rid of gendered nouns.
I prefer dealing with complicated but ultimately rule-based stuff like は/が over the utter nonsense that is grammatical gender (and I’m German).
Edit: and because I see heated discussion about it elsewhere: grammatical gender is a very convenient thing to have (not to learn) and I wouldn’t abolish it (just wouldn’t want to learn it).
What’s convenient about it? I genuinely see no benefits, as a native speaker of a gendered language.
Take this example:
“Bob took his hat out of the bag and dropped it.” What did he drop?
“Bob nahm seinen Hut aus der Tasche und ließ sie fallen.” “Bob took his male hat out of the female bag and dropped her.” Ah, he dropped the bag!
There’s better examples, I’m sure, but having gendered pronouns makes references clearer than everything just being “it”. It’s a way to structure sentences that may not be vital to understanding (because obviously there are languages that work perfectly fine without it) but makes it easier. Like capitalising nouns or clear rules for where to put commas can make reading easier.
That only works if they have different genders. Which is often not the case in most gendered languages.
“Bob sacó su manzana de la caja y la dejó caer.”
Bob took his female apple out of his female box and let it (female) fall
Also from my experience growing and going to school in a gender language (not Spanish btw), grammar classes are way more intense and thorough than for something like English. Most people don’t really have grammar classes in English speaking countries, while I studied it until the last year of high school…
More complex grammar certainly makes it more difficult to learn, even for native speakers.
Yes, that doesn’t negate the fact that genderedness serves a purpose. It’s not simply there to annoy language learners.
Wow, nice, danke.
But I honestly don’t think the effort/price is worth it. You can make unambiguous references if required.
That’s the thing, it’s only an effort if you’re actively learning the language. Natives think about the gender of nouns only in certain, rare edge-cases that are ill-defined, like loanwords or “artificial” words (Nutella is gender-fluid). It would make more sense to just define those edge-cases than to try to get rid of gendered nouns.
Gwa.
(There are whole books written about the usages, but this is far from the worst thing to get wrong if you’re new to Japanese so don’t worry).