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Comment by rob74 | Hacker News Reader

There are words that can have several Artikel, sometimes depending on regional differences (e.g. Austrians have different preferences than Germans), sometimes because of multiple meanings of a word. In that case, I would expect the game to accept all valid answers. But I got the impression that all words were singular, so "der" would be the only valid option for "Ausländer". I had a similar issue with "Geschwister", where I picked "das" (correct according to https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Geschwister), but the game expected "die" (which IMHO only makes sense for the plural form). Looks like it needs a bit more QA :)

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> I had a similar issue with "Geschwister", where I picked "das" (correct according to https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Geschwister)

The actual correct singular form of "[die (since plural)] Geschwister" is "das Geschwist" - a word that is rather obscure even for many native German speakers.

Sometimes it's not regional but depends on the intended meaning. "der Schild" is the thing you wear for protection (shield), "das Schild" tells you the way (sign).

The intention with that game was to pick the artikels for the singular form of the words. I am a complete beginner in German, but I thought the artikel for plurals is always 'die'. However, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of exceptions to that rule. As for Geschwister, yep, that seems wrong. I will fix it!

I had "Jugendliche". "Der" can make sense for a male person. But "die" would also work, for the female person.

Also for „See“. Der See - the lake. Die See - the sea.

> I am a complete beginner in German, but I thought the artikel for plurals is always 'die'.

Correct.

> However, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of exceptions to that rule.

Not to this one.

> with "Geschwister"

I never heard that used as a singular noun. Maybe it is a Swiss thing. If anything you could say 'das Geschwisterkind'.

Actually, the Duden article I linked above says (under "Bedeutungen"):

1. (männliche wie weibliche) Kinder gleicher Eltern, nur im Plural. Beispiele: "die Geschwister sehen sich alle ähnlich", "ich habe drei Geschwister (wir sind vier Geschwister)"

2. einzelner Geschwisterteil. Gebrauch: Fachsprache; auch schweizerisch Beispiel: "das ältere Geschwister"

So, you are correct, the singular form is only used by the Swiss and as a technical term. So maybe the game shouldn't contain it at all? Or accept both "das" and "die", in case someone thinks it has to be plural?

Yes, that's where I took the Swiss thing from, I haven't heard that word before. As for the technical term, to me that sounds like one of these artificially degendered forms that are en vogue to day. For anyone who doesn't knows it: 'Geschwister' comes from sister, it is kind of like sisterhood, the other term is 'Gebrüder', which is outdated now. (Yes sisterhood would be 'Schwesternschaft', I can't think of an English grammatical equivalent. Maybe something like 'sistered', the participle to sister describing the set of people you are sistered to.)

The feminist crowd just perceives a common male word as gendered and a common female word to be not.

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