[smsm42]

I speak two languages with gendered nouns, and I didn't find much specific usefulness for it. It's just something that is part of the package, so you go with it, and you can claim that provides more rich texture or such (though I'm not sure why knowing "table" is "male" and "government" is "female" really has any meaning, but maybe poets have one more tool to play with), but I'm not really sure it's that useful outside of using it for objects for which gender does make sense. But even then saying different word for "walked" depending on whether it was male or female walking doesn't really seem to me much of an advantage. It's just what it is.

[int_19h]

It certainly does provide some extra flavors for poets to play with.

It also makes translations to other languages hell, when noun genders are used for allegoric purposes.

[throwaway91111]

> when noun genders are used for allegoric purposes

Ugh, really? How disappointing.

[int_19h]

Just to give an example, consider this short poem:

https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Ein_Fichtenbaum_steht_einsam

Now try translating this to a language where the tree names are gendered differently, such that e.g. both are male, or both are female.

[smsm42]

That is exactly what happened to the Russian translation:

https://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B0_%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%...

In Russian, both words are female.

[int_19h]

Yeah, Russian is the one I was thinking of.

Although it's actually more complicated, because there's more than one Russian translation, and this problem was tackled in different ways. Lermontov just did a straightforward translation, changing the implied meaning. Tutchev and Fet both changed the pine to another tree such that the word is male: cedar or oak (in the latter case, this also required changing the described environment in which it grows).

[CodeMage]

Just out of curiosity, which language are your examples from? I'm asking because my native language is Serbian and it also features "male" tables and "female" government.

[smsm42]

Hebrew has the same. Spanish though has it reversed (I didn't mean it among languages I speak since I'm just beginning studying it).

[allendoerfer]

German, too. He might accidentaly be onto something.

[tom_mellior]

And it's the exact opposite in French and presumably all (most?) other Romance languages as well: female table, male government.