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Andrew S. Tanenbaum's FAQ

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Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum's FAQ

#11

Post by xiaq »

micheljansen wrote: post #3

> Will somebody please explain to me why 'ezel' (donkey) is masculine, 'paard' (horse) is neuter and 'antilope' (antelope) is feminine? Don't worry, Dutch people don't know this either. Unfortunately that means for each word you'll have to learn whether it's a "de" or a "het" word. Something that slowly happens over time as your vocabulary expands. This is one of the main reasons why Dutch has a reputation of being d…

You must be joking about Dutch being difficult to master. Dutch grammar is in every aspect simpler than German. The orthography is a bit awkward though.

Also, it is weird that Tannenbaum makes a difference between masculine and feminine at all, since in standard Netherlandic Dutch they have since long ago merged into the common gender ("de" word). I guess he just got that knowledge from some old grammar book...

Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum's FAQ

#12

Post by microtonal »

micheljansen wrote: post #3

> Will somebody please explain to me why 'ezel' (donkey) is masculine, 'paard' (horse) is neuter and 'antilope' (antelope) is feminine? Don't worry, Dutch people don't know this either. Unfortunately that means for each word you'll have to learn whether it's a "de" or a "het" word. Something that slowly happens over time as your vocabulary expands. This is one of the main reasons why Dutch has a reputation of being d…

Unfortunately that means for each word you'll have to learn whether it's a "de" or a "het" word.

It's a good thing, since masculine/feminine doesn't matter much in the end (compared to e.g. German). Of course, it does matter for pronouns, but we get them wrong all the time anyway.

My wife is an excellent non-native speaker of Dutch. She has most problems with finding the right prepositions and the usual phoneme differences (especially diphthongs).

I can imagine that for a speakers of a non-Germanic languages V2 word order can also be strange (the finite verb is in the final position, however moves to the second position in declarative main clauses), and as a consequence what goes into the vor/mittel/nachfeld.

(Note: I am not an expert in language acquisition at all, just extrapolating from a sample of 1 :)).

Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum's FAQ

#13

Post by microtonal »

xiaq wrote: post #11
micheljansen wrote: post #3

> Will somebody please explain to me why 'ezel' (donkey) is masculine, 'paard' (horse) is neuter and 'antilope' (antelope) is feminine? Don't worry, Dutch people don't know this either. Unfortunately that means for each word you'll have to learn whether it's a "de" or a "het" word. Something that slowly happens over time as your vocabulary expands. This is one of the main reasons why Dutch has a reputation of being d…

You must be joking about Dutch being difficult to master. Dutch grammar is in every aspect simpler than German. The orthography is a bit awkward though. Also, it is weird that Tannenbaum makes a difference between masculine and feminine at all, since in standard Netherlandic Dutch they have since long ago merged into the common gender ("de" word). I guess he just got that knowledge from some old grammar book...

Also, it is weird that Tannenbaum makes a difference between masculine and feminine at all, since in standard Netherlandic Dutch they have since long ago merged into the common gender ("de" word).

Yes, but it is still relevant for pronouns:

  Dit is een ezel, [hij/zij/het] staat in de wei.
Whether most speakers actually know the correct gender and thus pronoun is another question ;).

Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum's FAQ

#14

Post by j-b »

petilon wrote: post #5
avinassh wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love his Operating Systems book [0] which explains OS Concepts using Minix code [0] - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0131429388

I recommend buying your computer books in India. US Price for this book is $150 USD. India price is around Rs. 427 which is around $7 USD. Textbook prices, like everything related to education and healthcare are excessively high in the US. A reasonable price would be around $50, which is what this book would cost if it wasn't a textbook. The same book in Amazon India: http://www.amazon.in/Operating-Systems-Implementa…

I was eager to take your advice. Problem is it can't be shipped to the US.

Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum's FAQ

#16

Post by [deleted] »

petilon wrote: post #5
avinassh wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love his Operating Systems book [0] which explains OS Concepts using Minix code [0] - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0131429388

I recommend buying your computer books in India. US Price for this book is $150 USD. India price is around Rs. 427 which is around $7 USD. Textbook prices, like everything related to education and healthcare are excessively high in the US. A reasonable price would be around $50, which is what this book would cost if it wasn't a textbook. The same book in Amazon India: http://www.amazon.in/Operating-Systems-Implementa…

[deleted]

Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum's FAQ

#17

Post by gadders »

micheljansen wrote: post #3

> Will somebody please explain to me why 'ezel' (donkey) is masculine, 'paard' (horse) is neuter and 'antilope' (antelope) is feminine? Don't worry, Dutch people don't know this either. Unfortunately that means for each word you'll have to learn whether it's a "de" or a "het" word. Something that slowly happens over time as your vocabulary expands. This is one of the main reasons why Dutch has a reputation of being d…

I've always wondered when someone names or creates a new device or object, who decides what gender it should be.

Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum's FAQ

#18

Post by LeonRobrotsky »

petilon wrote: post #5
avinassh wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love his Operating Systems book [0] which explains OS Concepts using Minix code [0] - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0131429388

I recommend buying your computer books in India. US Price for this book is $150 USD. India price is around Rs. 427 which is around $7 USD. Textbook prices, like everything related to education and healthcare are excessively high in the US. A reasonable price would be around $50, which is what this book would cost if it wasn't a textbook. The same book in Amazon India: http://www.amazon.in/Operating-Systems-Implementa…

Just look on AbeBooks:

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?isbn=978812032...

Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum's FAQ

#19

Post by andrey-p »

gadders wrote: post #17
micheljansen wrote: post #3

> Will somebody please explain to me why 'ezel' (donkey) is masculine, 'paard' (horse) is neuter and 'antilope' (antelope) is feminine? Don't worry, Dutch people don't know this either. Unfortunately that means for each word you'll have to learn whether it's a "de" or a "het" word. Something that slowly happens over time as your vocabulary expands. This is one of the main reasons why Dutch has a reputation of being d…

I've always wondered when someone names or creates a new device or object, who decides what gender it should be.

At least in Bulgaria, people go for whatever the word sounds like. Rough rule of thumb is, words that end in -a tend to sound feminine, words with -o tend to sound neuter.

So I'd say едно Ардуино or one neuter Arduino.

Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum's FAQ

#20

Post by gpvos »

micheljansen wrote: post #3

> Will somebody please explain to me why 'ezel' (donkey) is masculine, 'paard' (horse) is neuter and 'antilope' (antelope) is feminine? Don't worry, Dutch people don't know this either. Unfortunately that means for each word you'll have to learn whether it's a "de" or a "het" word. Something that slowly happens over time as your vocabulary expands. This is one of the main reasons why Dutch has a reputation of being d…

Many languages have more difficult gender systems than Dutch. Dutch grammar is easier than German; our orthography is a little less regular than German, but still orders of magnitude more regular than French, Danish or English.

The main difficulty is that you cannot practice speaking Dutch until you are already quite advanced, because if you speak broken Dutch, you will in all cases get an answer in pretty good English (heck; our broken German or French is probably still better than a learner's broken Dutch).

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