Mozart's birthday

[airboatr]

thats it isn't

[nigelb]

If you allow me to point out that Mozart was AUSTRIAN...

(inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale - okay!)

...I recommend before taking on questions like this...

As an aside, why do Germans insist on stringing relatively short words together to make a new word with an abominal length such as "Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz"?

...to start with a very basic german problem - three articles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_t5aEchJVU

Cheers,


Nick

Great video! I am well aware that Mozart was Austrian as he was born in Salzburg. I think the liberetto for Die Zauberflöte was written in German as opposed to Austrian Standard German, although I am not certain as it had its premiere in Vienna. "Die Zauberflöte" How does a flute become feminine by the way? Always amazed me that it is "Das Madchen" (put umlauts over the 'a') rather than Die Madchen. How can a girl/maiden be neuter? Of course I am sure English is very confusing for people to learn but keeping track of the gender of those articles in German is a bit of a challenge.

Nigel²

[TobyV]

Nigel,

I think Maedchen is neuter because the word has the suffix "chen" which makes something diminutive. Kaninchen (rabbit) certainly is neuter too. I was about to suggest another word for girl, Maedel, which is a little bit slang, but just checked and thats neuter too. I dunno!

Logic failure. Someone please notify the relevant German government department. I'm sure they'll fix it (thinks 1996 spelling reforms!)

[WhisperJet]

He certainly was Nick

It had to be said...
Please understand, I'm working for a classical music radio station here in Vienna...

And you know that Austrians are very proud of their biggest achievement in the post-war era:
make the world think that Beethoven was Austrian and Hitler was German...

As for the gender questions - I'll try to explain...

Toby you're right, the suffix "-chen" which makes something diminutive.
And everything with "-chen" will be neuter then, that's why it's "Das Mädchen".

Still there's two other kinds of neuter-diminutives, one being the suffix "-lein".
So you have "Die Frau" (the woman) but then "Das Fräulein" (young woman, polite).

Austrian german has the neuter-diminutive "-erl" (or in older "-el"), that's why you'll come to "Das Mädel" or "Das Dreimäderlhaus".
(You can't say "Frauerl" though, it's "Fräulein" in Austria as well.)

But things get really complicated when you come to Switzerland. Swiss german knows the diminutive suffix "-li" as a dialect version of "-lein".
So you'll get "Maitli" for "Mädel". But to completely confuse a foreigner - it's still "Fräulein" in Switzerland and not (as you'd expect) "Fräuli".

However all of them are neuter.

All the best from Vienna,

Nick
(holding both Austrian and Swiss passports)

[Garry Russell]

However all of them are neuter.

I wouldn't want to be neutered

[airboatr]

snip snip

[nigelb]

Ouch!

Nigel²