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by xg15 1273 days ago
Missed the opportunity to add "Der Käse" after "Das Käsestück".

And yeah, it's the equivalent to English prepositions, it's just lots of history and no logic.

2 comments

That one is logical: the piece of cheese - it's a piece, not a cheese. The bottle of water - it's a bottle, not a water.
“Two waters, please.”
Anyway, clearer example: wall paint is a paint, not a wall.

It is always this grammatical structure in German. Consider the alternative: weighing the "weight" of the parts of a compound word to figure out the grammatical gender. Lots of rules and exceptions! As it is, there is one very simple rule with AFAIK no exceptions.

German is difficult for sure, but the gender of compound words is a bad example to prove that.

oh I made that mistake with "Die pizza" und "Das pizzastück"