​Useful (or useless?) trick for German genders: “Der“, “die“, “das“ – English speakers driven to madness with the German language’s random gender assignments can breathe easier. There’s a trick to effectively “neuter” every word – by making it cute!

By adding “chen” to the end of any word, it will automatically become the German Diminutive (meaning, a tiny version of itself) – and always carry the article “das”. For example DER TISCH –> DAS TISCHCHEN. Even the German word for “girl” (“Mädchen”) is actually neuter! But you need to remember three things:

-If the word has an “a”, “o” or “u” in it, this will turn into “ä”, “ö”, or “ü”, respectively. For example DER HUND -> DAS HÜNDCHEN, DER MANN –> DAS MÄNNCHEN, DIE BOHNE –> DAS BÖHNCHEN, etc.

– Even though Germans may applaud your grammatical accuracy, if you speak like this too much they will question your sanity and wonder what kind of adorable miniature wonderland you take this place for.

– An alternative word ending for nouns is “-lein” (as in the now-obsolete “Fräulein”), which is not used as universally, but still renders the word neuter.

– Don’t worry about articles so much in the first place!

Try it!