Why do nouns need sex?
Why LE chapeau but LA chemise? Why LA main but LE pied?
Who gave a gender to each and every noun in French and whatever for?
This must stump every student of the French language. At least in Spanish and Italian, it's pretty straightforward - if the noun ends in an "a", it's a pretty sure bet that it is a female noun. In French, however, there just seems to be no rhyme or reason why one noun is masculine, but another is feminine.
To make matters worse, the French act as though they have no idea what you are saying if you get the gender wrong; they don't understand the whole sentence if one gender is wrong. I was given a key for the mailbox some time ago. I asked the guy, "ah, un seul cle?" ("ah, a single key?") - the guy looked at me as though I had two heads, with a look of complete bewilderment and confusion. He asked me to repeat. I repeated, twice, pointing at the key. Then it hit him and he says, "ah, UNE seule cle!" - Hello? Just because I got the UNE confused with UN, he had no idea what I was talking about? What about taking a bit of context into the equation?
It's not like the UNE and the UN are pronounced similarly, in which case I could just mumble the gender and hope to be understood. No, the UNE sounds very different from UN, unfortunately. I have an issue with the LA and LE as well. I am rather partial to LES personally, which cleverly and thankfully disguises the gender question - until you start writing, in which case all the other parts of the sentences have to change to accommodate the sex of the noun. Why so complex?
It's rather embarrassing when little kids get the gender right, but I cannot seem to retain the right sex for some of the words. It's like my friend S. was saying - foreigners walk around saying "je veux eau" - literally, I want wanter - and wonder why nobody understands. Whereas French kids learn words with definite articles, so "je veux de l'eau" (again, "I want water" but with extra complex grammatical rules added in for some incomprehensible reason).
Until someone can explain to me why nouns have sex and the reasons behind the assignment of said sex, I don't think I will ever get it right 100% - file this under another ambiguity uniquely French...
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