You might be able to memorize these by rote repetition, but not for more than a few minutes. Tree-masculine, Tree bud-feminine, Leaf-neuter, Horse-neuter, Dog-masculine, Cat-feminine, Mouth-masculine, Neck-masculine, Hand-feminine, Nose-feminine, Knee-neuter, and Heart-neuter. You’ll do it quickly, you’ll do it easily, and you’ll even have fun.

In the next few minutes, you’re going to memorize the genders of twelve troublesome nouns in German, identified in Mark Twain’s essay, 'The Awful German Language'. The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about a conscience from hearsay. To continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves are neuter horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats are female, -Tom-cats included, of course a person’s mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head is male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and not according to the sex of the individual who wears it, -for in Germany all the women wear either male heads or sexless ones a person’s nose, lips, shoulders, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven’t any sex at all. Fair warning: there's some vivid imagery ahead. So you'll never forget whether you need to use un or una, ein or eine, and so on before a noun. The excerpt below from polyglot Gabriel Wyner's book, _Fluent Forever can help you easily and quickly memorize nouns' grammatical groups in a new language. How can you memorize nonsensical bits of grammar? Try the Mnemonic Imagery Game._ In other languages, you have to memorize not only the noun but also whether it's female, male, or neutral-otherwise you'll wreck the grammar.

In English, you can swap most nouns for a different noun and the grammar stays intact. Many languages are tricky for native English speakers to learn because of a thing called _grammatical gender.

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