Mnemonics: The Concepts Of Grammatical Gender In English Language

Introduction

Grammatical gender is the categorization of nouns into masculine and feminine, and (in addition) neuter in some languages. Grammatical gender is not always in accord with the natural gender of the nouns. Especially in languages with binary gender distinction, in which a noun is either masculine or feminine, the grammatical gender of inanimate nouns, abstract nouns, etc, is not always predictable and should be learnt as such. Even in some languages with masculine–feminine–neuter distinction (eg, German), inanimate nouns could be masculine, feminine, or neuter. Thus, grammatical gender of nouns in such languages poses difficulty to second/foreign language learners. In such languages, most often, noun endings provide clues to the

The principle behind mnemonic techniques is that remembering and recalling associated or related elements is easier than doing so with arbitrarily linked information or elements. The purpose of using mnemonics is connecting or creating an associative link even between unrelated elements, so that the target element in question can be remembered easily and retrieved when needed using the mnemonic key assigned. Another type of mnemonic device is chunking—remembering a set of details in a single or simplified cue from which the compressed details are expanded and retrieved later. The mnemonic “VIBGYOR” is an example of commonly used chunk

In addition, there are exceptions and nouns that end in other vowels and consonants. Stockwell et al listed grammatical gender as the fifth most difficult feature of Spanish grammar for English-speaking students to master. One could assume a similar level of difficulty posed by grammatical gender in Spanish for learners whose first language does not have grammatical gender. Even among languages with grammatical gender, the gender of nouns vary from language to language, eg, the noun “book” (Buch) is neuter in German, feminine (kita:b) in Hindi–Urdu, and masculine (kita:b) in Arabic. Bergen provided an elaborate map of gender rules of Spanish nouns and exceptions, in which rules, generalizations, and exceptions in regard to the topic were discussed and gender rules and exceptions listed in previous studies were evaluated. They also proposed the acronym “loners” as a mnemonic for masculine nouns in Spanish, derived from the fact that the majority of the Spanish nouns ending in -l, -o, -n, -e, -r, and -s are masculine. Similarly, “D-ión-z-a” is a commonly used mnemonic for feminine nouns. Of note, there are many exceptions to such generalizations. The gender of some exceptions can be sorted out by analyzing the etymology or stress/syllable pattern of the noun (eg, nouns of Greek origin ending in -ma are masculine, disyllable words in which the first syllable has a stressed “a” and the second