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As Someone Learning German, I Know This Pain
(lemmy.tf)
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this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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I can explain: it's not, it's a lie. Using the wrong gender feels wrong but that's about it. It's a common second language learner mistake and it doesn't make you sound like a moron. With a little luck, you took a gender that's accepted in other regions of Germany (like die Email is standard while das Email is southern east I think). It's a mess.
Technically, there are ambiguities but not really like der Leiter the leader die Leiter the ladder and of cause you could find an example where this is really confusing, unless you are a bit patient and have some empathy.
In any case, I have deep respect for everyone who learns the mess that's my native language and nobody should feel bad for making minor mistakes.
To stay with people as an example: die Tänzer would mean plural right? But as an answer to a question, it might be confusing. Let’s assume you’re asked: „Wer war gestern Abend auf der Bühne?“. Assuming both participants know it’s an establishment with either several dancers or one female act, misgendering the female dancer trough omission of the correct ending would lead to confusion, since the false answer would be the same answer as the one being given by someone overwhelmed with gendering: „Die Tänzer“.
That is by definition confusing. Just because you can accommodate for it, doesn’t mean it isn’t initially.
About the moron part: that does really depend as well. I happen to work with a few people who are not German native speakers and tend to be very articulate in English. The way they often misgender common words in German really takes away from their credibility, since it happens so often. Doing it once or twice can be excused, but doing it often does not help you seem intelligent.
In your example, you wouldn't use the definite article anyway. "Eine Tänzer" could be wrong indefinite article or wrong noun, but unless you aren't hyper obsessed with gender (of people), it doesn't matter. "Die Tänzer" would only be used when they were introduced before. That's how define articles work. Sure, a foreigner could get that wrong, too, but then there are already 2 mistakes and of course, more mistakes make it worse. Also: if it's established that it's a dancing establishment, why not ask about "how many dancers" instead? As I said, you can construct cases, but it's not easy and yours isn't very good I'm afraid.
About your work environment: I get that it can come across as unprofessional, especially in writing. But in writing you have grammar checks, if you're lucky (I just checked and libreoffice sadly doesn't, but maybe with addons and I think MS office (which I'm forced to use at work) has it by default). And if they are viewed as morons in spoken form, I'm sorry to inform you that you work in a toxic environment. My non native colleges never had that problem as far as I know.
I think the case about dialect I made in response to OPs question is the better explanation.
You obviously work in a far more open an relaxed sector than I do. I administer in forestry services within Germany. Usually we get foreign subcontractors to do hard labour felling trees (European competition laws are the main culprit). It is important for everyone’s safety that they understand precisely what is at stake. Anyone not using precise language and relying on the information gained trough insufficient means is a moron in that field of work. And thinking, that, understanding a little of what was being said is enough to gather the entire context, a lot of the people we work with rely on that. To combat that we partially switched to pictograms.