zompist bboard

*1) üben is more like doing exercises (e.g. from a taxt book), while "speak in order to practice" is praktizieren . What? A doctor praktiziert (practices [medicine]), but praktizieren  in German never has the meaning of practicing to learn something. "Wir praktizieren Deutsch" would sound completel...

German has schwärzen (from schwarz ‘black’), weißen (from weiß ‘white’), röten (from rot ‘red’), grünen (from grün ‘green’), blauen (from blau ‘blue’), bräunen (from braun ‘brown’), grauen (from grau ‘grey’). For gelb ‘yellow’ there is no *gelben but there is a verb vergilben . For golden ‘golden’ a...

A pertinent question might be: are there any languages with grammatical gender in which at least one noun with a male referent is of female gender, and vice versa? In German, Weib and Töchter are neuter, which is as close as I can think of right now. German has der Rogner which means ‘female fish’ ...