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I'm beginning to read my first book in German (I haven't taken any courses on the language, just Duolingo, but it's not too helpful) and I am wondering why it titles the first part with "erster Teil" instead of "erstes Teil", because I would have said this is in the nominative case and Teil is a neuter word, then "erste" should become "erstes" and not "erster" which I think is the masculine nominative case. What is it I am not understanding?

user unknown
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valkyriebel
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1 Answers1

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Teil has various nuanced meanings, among them "part (of a book)" and "part (of a machine)". Unfortunately, they differ in genus.

DWDS lists e.g.

1. Abschnitt, Glied, Stück von einem Ganzen

Grammatik: Genus Maskulinum
Beispiele:

  • der obere, vordere Teil eines Gegenstandes, Hauses, Schrankes
  • der nördliche Teil des Landes
  • der redaktionelle Teil der Zeitung
  • der erste, zweite Teil des Buches, Dramas, Gedichtes

which is the "part (of a book)" that your question is about, and

4. als selbstständig betrachtetes, für sich allein bestehendes Stück eines Ganzen, Einzelstück, Einzelteil

Schreibung: Teil; Grammatik: Genus Neutrum
siehe auch Teilchen
Beispiele:

  • ein defektes Teil ausbauen, auswechseln, einsetzen
  • ich habe jedes einzelne Teil in der Hand gehabt

which is the "part (of a machine)" that you learned as being neutrum (das Teil).

While this may come across as very nitpicky and unnecessary on the part of the German language, it should become a non-issue with some practice. Native speakers can distinguish those meanings and use the proper genus without thinking about it.

Raketenolli
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  • There is a short list of German nouns with multiple genders depending on the meaning. Another is See (both die and der). – RDBury May 19 '23 at 20:36
  • There is a similar list at https://german.stackexchange.com/questions/49433/liste-deutscher-substantive-mit-mehreren-genera but it also lists words that just use different articles depending on who's speaking or writing, but where the meaning does not change (Blackout, Butter, Jogurt, ...). – Raketenolli May 19 '23 at 20:43