I didn't learn of any rhyme or reason to it in German when I took classes on it. In fact, in a few cases, the gender changes the meaning of the word. Der See und die See, for example. One means lake and the other means sea/ocean.
There's more shenanigans with "umfahren" and "umfahren", where Intonation matters. One means "drive around", the other "run over".
Also one is a strong and one is a weak verb, meaning that in certain cases, one will be split apart:
Ich umfahre jemanden: I drive around someone.
Ich fahre jemanden um: I run someone over.
That's a rather rare occurence. Most often, only the grammar will be incorrect if you use the wrong article.
OMG, I've been doing my Duolingo lessons and never realised that they had different meanings, I just thought Germans used one word for all bodies of water ðŸ˜
"Die See" denotes an ocean, "der See" denotes a lake. You will more often hear "das Meer" instead of "die See" tho.
I didn't learn of any rhyme or reason to it in German when I took classes on it. In fact, in a few cases, the gender changes the meaning of the word. Der See und die See, for example. One means lake and the other means sea/ocean.
There's more shenanigans with "umfahren" and "umfahren", where Intonation matters. One means "drive around", the other "run over".
Also one is a strong and one is a weak verb, meaning that in certain cases, one will be split apart:
Ich umfahre jemanden: I drive around someone.
Ich fahre jemanden um: I run someone over.
That's a rather rare occurence. Most often, only the grammar will be incorrect if you use the wrong article.
OMG, I've been doing my Duolingo lessons and never realised that they had different meanings, I just thought Germans used one word for all bodies of water ðŸ˜
"Die See" denotes an ocean, "der See" denotes a lake. You will more often hear "das Meer" instead of "die See" tho.