this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2025
603 points (97.5% liked)

memes

15444 readers
3728 users here now

Community rules

1. Be civilNo trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour

2. No politicsThis is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world

3. No recent repostsCheck for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month

4. No botsNo bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins

5. No Spam/AdsNo advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.

A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment

Sister communities

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

| French | English | |


|


| | du | of the | | de l' | of the | | de la | of the | | des | of the | | au | to the / at the | | à l' | to the / at the | | à la | to the / at the | | aux | to the / at the |

French has multiple options because it has 2 genders for nouns "the chair" = "la chaise" (female), "the bench" = "le banc" (male), and it changes the article when you're talking about multiple things vs. single things "the benches" = "les bancs".

So, French really has 3 versions of "the": "le" (male, singular), "la" (female, singular), "les" (female or male, singular).

But German... ugh. There's a 4x4 matrix of German words for "the". German had the wisdom to come up with a neuter gender, but the insanity to not apply it to most common objects. Somehow a knife is sexless, a spoon is male and a fork is female. Making it worse, the version of "the" you use for an object depends on whether the object is the subject of a sentence, the object of a sentence, the indirect object of a sentence or possessive. I don't know if it's better or worse (but I'm leaning towards worse) that they re-use a lot of these articles at other spots in the matrix, so "der" is used for male objects in the nominative case, female in the dative case, and plural objects in the genitive case.

| Case | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | Plural | |


|


|


|


|


| | nominative | der | die | das | die | | accusative | den | die | das | die | | dative | dem | der | dem | den | | genitive | des | der | des | der |

Take "Stein" which is stone, not beer glass. If you're an English speaker and are used to adding an "s" to make something plural, and you see "Der Stein" and "Des Steines", you might think that the version with the "es" is the plural, right? Nope, the plural of "Der Stein" is "Die Steine". "Des Steins" is for the possessive case. You'd use "Der Stein" for "The stone is heavy", but if you want to say "The weight of the stone is high" you have to switch to "Des Steins" -- and to add another twist, sometimes it's "Steines" because of reasons.

[–] Alfredolin@sopuli.xyz 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] Alfredolin@sopuli.xyz 3 points 6 days ago

Your matrix is correct, op errored on the neutral branch with "den".

[–] fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk 11 points 6 days ago

Yorkshire:
T' (Glottal stop sound)

[–] OmegaLemmy@discuss.online 8 points 6 days ago

I don't even know a correct way to translate 'the' to my language, it doesn't really exist

[–] cepelinas@sopuli.xyz 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Me speaking a language which uses quotes instead of the

That kid is about to ruin someone's microwave lunch.

[–] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 6 days ago

You guys have articles?

[–] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

I can see now why English is seen as more universal, even if in an alternate timeline where the Anglophones never became dominant.

[–] BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Die Nichteinhaltung der Fallzahlen von eins bis vier vom Mittelpunkt ausgehend stört mich massiv.

Der, des, dem, den

Die, der, der, die

Das, des, dem, das

Die, der, den, die

[–] dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Norwegian: -en, -a, -et (suffixes)

But also -o, -i and probably other variations depending on location.

[–] AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

O and I? In swedish we only have en and ett and norwegian has a third one but what the hell are o and i? Im not very good with swedish yet(im an immigrant) but could you explain what o and i do? I dont think swedish has this tho.

[–] dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

They are dialects, mostly. In parts of western norway, -o is used for singular feminine words, for example: "stuo" (instead of "stua" ("the living room")). Similarly, -i is used in parts of central Norway, for example: "boki" (instead of "boka" ("the book")). I'm not sure if these are accepted in "correct" written form of nynorsk, but it is commonly used in spoken and written dialects.

[–] Lifter@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Swedish cottage: Stuga, Stugan, Stugor, Stugorna, Stugans, Stugornas

[–] dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Huh, I was not aware that "stuga" is swedish for "cottage". In norwegian, cottage would be: Hytte, hytta/hytto/hytti, hytter, hyttene. I could include genitive as well, but it's just adding an -s to each form.

[–] Lifter@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 5 days ago

In Swedish, (apparently) Hytta is a house with a Furnace, like a forge.

https://svenska.se/saol/?id=1174825&pz=5

[–] Lifter@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 5 days ago

Paired with or used as pronouns: Den, De, Dem, Dens, Dess.

[–] lnxtx@feddit.nl 5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Polish: (null)
🫲👁️🧠👁️🫱

Correct, Polish doesn't exist. It never has, and it never will.

[–] SchwertImStein@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

not really, suffixes serve this purpose

[–] lnxtx@feddit.nl 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You sure?

Kupiłum rower.
Rower kosztował 1337 złotych.
Jadę teraz na tym [looks like an article] rowerze.
Rower nie jest nowy, raczej używany po remoncie.

what exsctly are you tryibg to prove? the meme is about declensional cases not using articles to distinguish between "any" and "this particular".

[–] AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

In hungarian the articles are only "a"(which actually works like the english "the" but with a form that is "az" which is like "a" turning into "an" in english) and then "egy" which means "a" in english but also means the number one. Most times from what i notice it works pretty closely to what german or english does. Where my whole "it works pretty intuitively" argument falls apart is that you conjugate your freaking verbs and they work in sometimes completely mysterious ways.

"Eszek egy almát" and "Eszem az almát" -- these are just "I eat an apple" and "I eat the apple"

But "Almát eszek" also works it just sounds more like you are specifically pointing out that its an apple that you are eating(and not an orange for example) and even tho its in the indefinite form it can sound pretty definite depending on context.

But then "Almát eszem" sounds like you are eating a person named Alma because for some reason not having the article makes it sound more personal.

"Eszek" is just eating

And at last "Eszem" sounds like you are pointing out that "I am eating that" or "I am eating that". Also if its in a more rural dialect it could be just the base form.

So yeah its an absolute brainfuck in hungarian.

[–] saltnotsugar@lemm.ee 83 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Any time I use the wrong definite article my German wife will loudly bark “NEIN!” It’s hot but educational.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 38 points 1 week ago

Hey, is your wife free later? I could really use some German lessons. I mean German less- I mean German- I mean Ger- I-I-I mean light domming.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 34 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm not sure any of those french phrases ever translate to "the"

[–] BenVimes@lemmy.ca 36 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You're right, they don't.

The ones beginning with "d" generally translate as "of the," while the "à" ones generally translate as "to the" or "at the."

French has three words that mean "the": "le" (masculine), "la" (feminine), and "les" (plural).

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] RobotZap10000@feddit.nl 29 points 1 week ago
load more comments
view more: next ›