Although we have a neuter form in german, I have no clue how these persons want to be referred to. As there are extremely few of them it probably comes down to individual preference.

Compared to other languages it is. You'll find weird rules and exceptions in every language but they come with overcomplicated grammar on top. It's much easier to get your english to an adequate level then your french or german for example. It's the most widely adopted foreign language world wide for a reason (actually for serveral reasons but this is one of them).

I can only think of one way in which german is simpler than english and that is pronunciation. If you read any german word that was not adopted from a different language you know for sure how it is spoken and most of time also the other way round (although there are some homophones). In English it's all over the place.

Finnish doesn't have gendered pronouns. "Hän" refers to both he and she.

That always causes some complications in English TV shows and movies where someone's gender is revealed by the use of pronouns (and the gender is somehow relevant to the story, like someone is surprised that they are talking about "she"), the Finnish subtitles have to work around that somehow, like translating "she" as "that lady".

Also I keep making mistakes in English, using he/him when I should be using she/her, and sometimes vice versa.

EDIT: So I guess in Finnish you would just add "mies" or "nainen" (man, woman) as your title if you so much want to stress to everyone what your perceived or preferred gender is.


In the thai languare, IIRC, there are gendered pronouns... but only for "me". So when you are referring to yourself (me), you say "phom" if you are a man, or "chan" if you are a woman.

I've understood Japanese has similar?

I've seen this formal/informal distinction in other languages. In Spanish, there's the difference between "tú" ("you", informal) and "usted" ("you", formal); I note that "usted" is grammatically third person, while "tú" is second person. (In the plural, there's another distinction, though only in some dialects; you hear the familiar plural you ("vosotros") in Spain but not in Mexico.

Japanese also does this. In formal speech, for the first person singluar pronoun ("I" in English) normally use "watashi" (わたし), but in informal speech you see some gendered forms used, like "atashi" (あたし, "I (female)") and "boku" (ぼく, "I (male)") (though "watashi" can still be used). Another interesting thing about Japanese is that it doesn't have a singular versus plural distinction; there's nothing similar to the English convention of adding "s" to a word to make it plural. Also, Japanese verbs conjugate based on tense and politeness, not based on number or subject.

As I said, yes, but only in informal speech; in formal Japanese, there's no distinction. (Also, "watashi" is acceptable in informal speech, so folks who are non-binary or don't want to state their gender can do so.)

See, I would have said they at least differ by a syllable, if not an entire prefix, thus being fairly distinctive.
In practice we're both right, but that's a good example for different perception. Though this one might also get easier, the more words with Greek origin your language contains.

Emphasis added.
We have surprisingly many of those, a lot more than the majority of native speakers realizes, I believe. For example, compare nie and Kastanie. Or Stil and Stiel.
I believe you alluded to this, but there's also some irregularities in pronounciation that crop up over time. For example, the er is a different sound in Erfahrung and Lehrer, I believe. Or bisschen not containing a sch-sound.

You're quite right, it's still a lot simpler than English, but it's not always completely obvious, either.

Out of curiosity, is Kuusi a 3-syllable word with distinct u, or would it be a single, stretched u?
The latter would be incredibly devious.

The issue here mainly applies to the written word; when reading text, it is *very* easy to skip over (or not notice) that "a", which completely negates the word.

I also happen to remember an interesting example that I've seen a few times: "Let's eat Grandpa!" versus "Let's eat, grandpa"!. The two sentences differ only in a comma, but yet have completely different meanings. (I don't think you want to eat grandpa; I don't think he'd be very tasty.)

Japanese actually does something interesting here. Whenever a loanword is written, it is written in katakana, making it stand out from the rest of the text (usually in a mixture of hirigana and kanji). The katakana indicates how the word is pronounced, though I believe it doesn't work so well for words with sounds not usually found in Japanese.

Katakana is also used in really old video games, when having hirigana as well would take up too much space. It's also used in contexts where English would use ALL CAPS, like when a robot is speaking or to indicate shouting/yelling. (It's interesting to note, however, that many early Japanese video games that are not text-heavy actually use English; the original Super Mario Bros. is an example of this.)

A couple of German moms, perhaps, now grandmas... dunno if he's still a thing like that

No, seriously, what's with russia/eastern europe and tracksuits ?

this

I do indeed (except I use British English spelling when it comes to 'memorisation'). The spelling issue (the trickiest part of English, as I mentioned above) strikes again.
Yes, there are definitely languages that have simpler spelling, although I wouldn't count Japanese among them, due to kanji.

Don't forget to try croquettes, patatas bravas and spanish tortilla. They are all delicious. :p

And I never had a problem with that, nor witnessed anybody else having a problem with that. Of course, that might be completely anecdotal, in which case I'm taking your word for it. Just wondering if this is a case where speakers of one language just have an easier time than those of others.

Taste had nothing to do with it. Times were tough after the dot-com crash.

My first thought was that this would probably be more feasible for them, because surely European languages contained significantly more loanwords, what with all the shifting borders, occupations, different empires and what not. Apparently that's not quite true, though. Shows what I know.

So I am basically mentally out here due to ignorance, but it is interesting. I would imagine a language with several writing components being capable of expressing a lot more in form than just pure meaning, which is rather intriguing - even though after a quick glance I have to admit, I don't think I even understand the difference between the syllabaries.

In this case I'd disagree. It's the same sound just with a different emphasis (Germans tend to put emphasis on the first syllable, while the French for example put it on the second. But other than that good examples for exceptions. Still pronunciation is rather strict, whereas in english a word like "ghoti" might sound the same as "fish" ;)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti

I don't know, I would liken the er in Lehrer to a shortened, slightly slurred a, which wouldn't work at all with a leading Er. However I'm no linguist and I couldn't tell you exact phonetic differences, not to mention dialects exist and I might be mistaken about the correct pronounciation in standard German, so you may very well be right.

I have to take exception with Ghoti, though. Flat out doesn't work like that. It's not that you can pronounce ti like that, but that you have to pronounce it like that, if it is part of the -tio/-tion ending. I wouldn't even call that an irregularity, that's just a rule. It bears noting that both nation and motion originate from Latin and we actually have the same situation in German - yet no one would claim it's pronounced "Zischfußball".

And yes, I'm great at parties.

Adidas must make mad dosh in Russia.