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Nouns: 002 All nouns have gender

3/6/2019

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Croatian grammar reference section/Nouns #002

All Croatian nouns have gender

Muški rod, ženski rod, ili srednji rod?

We all know that there are masculine and feminine people and animals.
 
But when you begin learning Croatian, it can be a shock to the system to realise that in Croatian every noun is assigned to be one of masculine gender (muški rod), feminine gender (ženski rod) or neuter gender (srednji rod).
 
For example, the word stol is the name given to the object that English speakers call “table”. It is assigned masculine gender.
 
The noun kuća (house) is feminine gender, and vino (wine) is neuter.


A philosophical thought: So far as I understand, Croatians don’t regard the object that we call a house as feminine, but its name, the noun kuća, is feminine. Someone might correct me?
 
Addendum:
I have since resolved this issue, and discussed it in another post: Miscellaneous #005: Do Croatians assign gender to objects?  


It is important to know the gender of nouns because the way that we change masculine nouns according to their case in a sentence (that is, how they decline) is different from the way that feminine nouns change, and the way that we change neuter nouns is different again.

And (Oh, I hate to say this!) there are various “declension types”, or categories, of nouns. Not all masculine nouns, for example, decline in the same way – that is, from type to type, the noun endings are not the same in the various cases. Does that make sense? Hopefully, the list of noun categories listed in the post Grammar reference section/Nouns #004: Declension categories of nouns will clarify things a bit.

Please don’t blame me for the complexity. I didn’t sit down and design the Croatian language. And of course, nobody did that – languages just evolve in irregular ways over long times.

And before you declare that this language is impossible, remember that millions of people seem to manage with it very well.

So how do we know if a noun is muški rod, ženski rod, or srednji rod?

Well, little Croatian kids are learning Croatian, they don’t get taught “rules”: they just come to know. And this tells us that the most important factor might be our extent of using the language – the more the better. It’s all about practice and familiarity.

But there are some “rules” or guidelines.


In my experience, most introductory textbooks give us a rule for telling the gender of nouns. We don’t know it at the time, but these are the “regular nouns”.  And just when you think you have conquered that, they tell us “Oh, by the way, there is another category of nouns that don’t fit those rules: They have their own particular declination endings.” Grrr! Why didn’t you at least tell me about these others before?

And just when you think that you have mastered these ones, along comes “Oh by the way, there is another set of nouns ……….”!!
​

​I try to give an overview of the various categories of nouns in the post Grammar reference section/Nouns #004: Declension categories of nouns. The nouns in each category have a particular gender.
​
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    • Posts 1 -15 >
      • 001 Kosa, koza, koža
      • 002 Pronouncing 'au'
      • 003 Can language influence behaviour?
      • 004 First day of the week
      • 005 Do Croatians assign gender to objects?
      • 006 Za četiri dana, na dva dana
      • 007 My brain becomes full!
      • 008 Sretan rođendan ti
      • 009 Na kavu, po kavu, za kavu?
      • 010 Until you don't do it
      • 011 Nazvati nekoga, telefonirati nekomu
      • 012 If she were a man ....
      • 013 Streets with two names?
      • 015 Tri, četiri, sad!
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      • 016 I feel like crying!
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      • 018 Picking up place names by ear
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      • 021 Požuri polako
      • 022 Mi, mi, mi, mi
      • 023 Why should we learn the grammar?
      • 024 Words for youngsters are neuter
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      • 003 Endings of pronouns and adjectives
      • 004 "u" ili "na" ?
      • 005 The declensions of Tko? and Što?
      • 006 Ja sam na Trgu bana Josipa Jelačića
      • 007 Going and coming: u-iz, but na-sa
      • 008 Sav - All, every
      • 009 Number of subjects and the verb 'biti'
      • 010 Koga nazoveš? Komu telefoniraš?
      • 011 Declension of place names
      • 012 Dati - dativ
      • 013 Verb endings: Who is the doer?
      • 014 Sibilarization and palatalization
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    • Grammar: Posts 16-30 >
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    • Grammar reference section >
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        • 001 Questions that define the case of nouns
        • 002 All nouns have gender
        • 003 Nouns in the nominative case
        • 004 Nouns: Declension categories
        • 004a A universal declension table?
        • 005 Declension of regular masculine nouns
        • 006 Declension of regular feminine nouns
        • 008 Masculine plural - infix or not?
      • VERBS >
        • 001 Transitive and intransitive verbs
        • 004 Conjugation types
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      • 002 U tom grmu leži zec!
      • 003 Baš me briga!
      • 004 Mačji kašalj!
      • 005 Što je, tu je!
      • 006 Eto ti ga na!
      • 007 Na licu mjesta
      • 008 Sve si to ti kriv!
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      • 004 Izvoli! Izvolite!
      • 005 Eto!
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    • POSTS 1 - 15 >
      • 001 Even dying is not easy!
      • 002 To laugh or to smile?
      • 003 Nahraniti, sahraniti .... schmahraniti
      • 004 Prefixes that modify verb meanings
      • 005 Prefixes on base verb stati
      • 006 Country names - noun or adjective?
      • 007 Names of towns: A grammatical nightmare
      • 008 Countries: What do we call their citizens?
      • 009 Baš
      • 010 What a joke! vic or šala?
      • 011 Čak
      • 012 Još or više? (More of something)
      • 013 Još or više? (Time-related)
    • FRAZEOLOGIJA - HOME >
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      • 001 In the time of coronavirus
    • Što je korijen riječi?: HOME >
      • 001 Nadimak
      • 002 Zora, prozor, zoran, ….
      • 003 Uništiti
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        • 003 A rebel
        • 004 Čuvarica Omiša
        • 005 Giorgio or Juraj?
        • 006 Tovar and friend
        • 007 Up on high
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        • 009 Water wonderland
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          • 002 Interliber book fair
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          • 005 A night at the ballet
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