Thread

1. deliciousturkey · 1789900662 · focus · HN ↗

   As a native speaker of a language without articles, I find the English article system by far the most intuitive and easiest to learn of all the languages I have studied. Most other Indo-European languages have articles that you simply need to memorize, as there is no way to derive them from the word itself. Which I never manage to do.

   1. nlitened · 1789901724 · focus · HN ↗

      You probably mean word genders? So you probably say it's sometimes difficult to derive the gender of a noun, hence the correct article

      1. andoando · 1789902020 · focus · HN ↗

         Genders in language is seemingly such a needlessly pointless concept I am really confused as to how it ever developed.

         I still feel Armenian is such a great Indo European language. No articles, no genders, completely phonetic, consistent verb endings, no particular word ordering

         1. igsomething · 1789908185 · focus · HN ↗

            In languages with genders you need fewer unique words for gender-related concepts. For example English (genderless) has "boy" and "girl", while Spanish (male and female) has "niño" and "niña".

            1. SamBam · 1789909054 · focus · HN ↗

               But that doesn't help you understand why "chair" might be feminine while "book" might be masculine.

               1. igsomething · 1789910851 · focus · HN ↗

                  On one hand I agree genders are pointless for chair and book. On the other hand, many nouns are the female or augmentative version of the base word. From your examples: "silla" (f, chair) vs "sillón" (m, sofa), and "libro" (m, book) vs "libreta" (f, notebook).

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.