Inanimate objects do not have genders so let's get rid of all these silly languages which engender objects...

Question

who is with me?

Answer 1

I agree with you. It's one of the most frustrating things about studying foreign languages for an English speaker. Romance languages have 2 genders, German has 3. Try studying Esperanto. It has no genders. It's article structure is even simpler than English's.

I speak English, Esperanto, Spanish, and German, Esperanto was far easier to learn than any of the others, and it opened the world to me. I've had conversations with people from every continent, and every country, and I only had to learn the easiest language on earth to do so.

You might ask, why is Esperanto easier to learn than any of the other languages? It's because it is a language designed to be simple to learn. Most of the time spent studying a foreign language is spent learning the irregularities and rule exceptions ("I before E except after C", " 'sheep' is both singular and plural", etc). Esperanto has only 16 grammatical rules, and no exceptions to any of the rules.

And before you ask, yes you can travel with Esperanto. Read this article in Wikipedia about the Esperanto "Pasporta Servo" (Pasport Service)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasporta_Servo

Answer 2

thank you Phipjf! that's ever so style! German has diverse genders for issues as nicely and the comparable be conscious might desire to have a diverse gender in French or German, so it extremely is tough. different than for studying by coronary heart, i won't be able to see the different answer. I admit that's confusing and lots less difficult in English. yet in languages of the comparable family members the gender seems the comparable like in Italian, French and Spanish as an occasion.

Answer 3

I'm not with you.
It's funny how you think they don't have sex.
Take French, for example. Some rivers are "HE" and some are "SHE". Do you know why?
Strangely, all the rivers that are "SHEs" do not run in straight lines, but have more curves. The HEs, on teh other hand, anre simpler and run always on striaght lines.
This is just a wonderful language thing!
Why would you wanna change that?!
So... in your case: just stick to English and be happy. Let others be free enjoy the pleasure of object engendering laguages!

Goodluck!

Answer 4

Would you still want male and female humans have grammatical gender? As in The [fem] woman - la femme? Or not just everything one gender?

[edit] Okay, if asking a question back to clearify will just give me thumbs down, I'll just give a random answer..

English used to have a very sophisticated gender system as well. The genders slowly stopped being used. Why? Who knows, I guess they didn't see the point in it anymore. And maybe they were right, maybe there is no point in it. My own language doesn't have a full gender system anymore either. It only has a common gender and a neuter gender. According to some even that is fading. And to be honest, I find it a pity.

Grammatical gender distinction makes a language a lot harder to learn for foreigners. But that doesn't mean it's stupid. I find it quite beautiful, mysterious. Kind of like what some men like in a woman =)

Answer 5

Something Esperanto borrowed from English, no genders. Made the language easy to learn, but when I studied German it really wasn't that big of a deal. What was ugly was all the noun declensions for all of them.

Answer 6

My first language ( italian) engenders objects and it's not silly. So get lost

Answer 7

Just because you English only speakers can't cope with any complications does not mean that the rest of the world has to become simple, too.

Answer 8

How do you get rid of languages? Send the native speakers to the gas chamber?

Answer 9

With you 100%. Have I missed something? Some answers make a french link. Why?

Answer 10

The French will never agree to dump their language.