Frustrations with grammar

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I'm learning German grammar at the moment.

From what I can tell, there are three genders. Each noun has it's own gender; male, female, neuter.

Easy for King and Queen, then 'girl' is neutral. So you have to learn it for most words.

The gender changes which word you use with it, e.g. the thing, a thing, which thing, this thing etc.

So for the you have Der Die or Das depending on whether it's male, female or neutral.

But the word also changes according to whether the noun is singular or plural, or which case it is; nominative, accusative, genitive or dative. Case is determined whether the noun is being acted on directly, indirectly, owned by, or via a recipient.

But the Germans don't come up with an entirely different word each time, they re-use words from different genders and cases.

And quite often using the correct gender and case is the only way to determine the meaning of the entire sentence and it can be a single letter different each time.

And the way verbs end changes accordingly as well.

Oh and they also use the same word for she and they.

'A dog is "der Hund"; a woman is "die Frau"; a horse is "das Pferd"; now you put that dog in the genitive case, and is he the same dog he was before? No, sir; he is "des Hundes"; put him in the dative case and what is he? Why, he is "dem Hund." Now you snatch him into the accusative case and how is it with him? Why, he is "den Hunden." But suppose he happens to be twins and you have to pluralize him- what then? Why, they'll swat that twin dog around through the 4 cases until he'll think he's an entire international dog-show all in is own person. I don't like dogs, but I wouldn't treat a dog like that--I wouldn't even treat a borrowed dog that way. Well, it's just the same with a cat. They start her in at the nominative singular in good health and fair to look upon, and they sweat her through all the 4 cases and the 16 the's and when she limps out through the accusative plural you wouldn't recognize her for the same being. Yes, sir, once the German language gets hold of a cat, it's goodbye cat. That's about the amount of it.' - Mark Twain

Boru