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Due to the accusative and nominative aspect of german language the sentence word order can be made in this manner and still be same

"Das Mädchen hat den Apfel" ="Den Apfel hat das Mädchen."

But my question is why is das used and not die which is the feminine form?

Vinay5forPrime
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    Because the grammatical gender is not equal the biological gender. "Mädchen" is neuter. Voting for close as general reference. – Em1 Jun 21 '16 at 15:34
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    Besides, does swapping the word order have anything to do with your question? I think it's completely irrelevant, isn't it? – Em1 Jun 21 '16 at 15:35
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    A proper answer would actually require a bit of an essay on Indo-European languages. –  Jun 22 '16 at 05:12
  • Em1 already said it: Grammatical gender is NOT biological gender (It can't be the same: There are only two biological genders, but three grammatical). So why is »Mädchen« neuter?: The suffix -chen is a diminutive marker. »Mädchen« literally is »kleine Maid« (the word »Maid« is outdated and no longer used). But the point is: All words that end with any diminutive marker (-chen, -lein, and in Austrian German also -erl) are always neuter. The term »grammatical gender« is missleading. Better think of it as noun class. – Hubert Schölnast Jun 22 '16 at 07:25
  • Also when the diminutive -chen is used as here (die Magd => das Maedchen) the word is always neuter, same with -lein (die Frau => das Fraeulein). – user22155 Jun 22 '16 at 09:20

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