Ausländer

By Auslaender

Eine Seerose/A Waterlily

Always a pretty flower to find.

Compound words in German always take the article from the last part of the word.  Seerose is a compound word made up of "der" See & "die" Rose so the associated definite and indefinite articles are "die" and "eine".

See (pronounced "Say" in German) is a curious noun.  It can take the articles "die" and "der".  "Die See" means it's a salt water sea - what everyone in Britain calls the Baltic Sea is "die Ostsee" in German.  And in contrast we something like "der Genfersee" - known in English as Lake Geneva - and now we know it's fresh water.  Obviously freshwater is not freshwater in German, it's  "Süßwasser" - 1:1 translated as "Sweet water".

If the journal entry here delves into linguistic nuances, you know that talking about anything else would bring forth a rant.

Oh and Geneva is called Genf here, hence Genfersee.  Where you got Geneva from remains a mystery.  It would be possible to find out if I could be bothered but it's not going to happen today.

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