Subject: Spanish computer
Subject: Spanish computer
A Spanish language teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.
> "House"for instance, isfeminine : "la casa."
> "Pencil," however, is masculine: "el lapiz."
> A student asked, "What gender is 'computer'?"
Insteadof giving the answer, the teacher divided the class into two groups, male andfemale, and asked them to decide for themselves whether "computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.
The men's group decided that"computer" should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la computadora") because:
1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyoneelse;
3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck to buy accessories for it.
> (THIS GETSBETTER!)
The women's group, however,concluded that computersshould be masculine ("el computador"),because:
1. In order to do anything withthem, you have to turn them on;
2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves;
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems,
but half the time they ARE the problem; and 4. As soon as you commit to one,you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model
The women won.
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When I'm teaching English to Chinese students, they often have difficulty stating the correct gender (because in spoken Mandarin the sound of the word for "he" is identical to the sound of the word for "she"). I tell them they're lucky they're not learning French or Spanish, wherein everything must be stated with gender, whereas in English only humans, animals and other creatures requires it.
A little test I give them up front to determine the level of their skill contains this question:
Is there anything incorrect about this? "My father is a doctor. She works in a hospital."
So your son was a girl, right?