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iPod The Gender of iPod in French

amateurmacfreak

amateurmacfreak

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 8, 2005
992
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Ok, I acknowledge this is quite a strange post, but I was wondering whethere iPod is masculine or feminine in French. It's probably masculine I'm guessing, and this is sort of a stupid post, but I got it added to our French vocab, so my French teacher wanted me to make sure on that. So I turned to you guys!:p
So... if anyone has an answer or thoughts about that would be awesome.:) :cool:
Thanks in advance!
 
If you google:

"le ipod" - 239,000 results

"la ipod" - 52,000 results (even though this is also a very common way to refer to it in spanish).

I think you have to use the gender of its generic name (mp3 player) and forget about the brand (ipod). Now, if I only knew how to say "mp3 player" in french... le playeur des mp3s?? :)
 
floyde said:
If you google:

"le ipod" - 239,000 results

"la ipod" - 52,000 results (even though this is also a very common way to refer to it in spanish).

I think you have to use the gender of its generic name (mp3 player) and forget about the brand (ipod). Now, if I only knew how to say "mp3 player" in french... le playeur des mp3s?? :)
Click to expand...


mp3 Player is translated as: un baladeur mp3 :)
 
asherman13 said:
Sure it's not gender-neutral? l'iPod?
Click to expand...
there's no such thing as gender-neutral in french. nouns taking a single definite object that begin with vowels may not by context alone indicate gender, but that doesn't mean they don't have one. also, it's 'le ipod', not 'l'ipod'. i wouldn't be able to tell you why that is exactly, but that's how it was.
 
interestingly enough, i just checked the fnac site (as well as apple.fr) and found that in writing it is most often seen as "l'ipod", as that would be what french grammar would indicate. however, after having lived in france for three months with plenty of french people who owned ipods, i can say that both culturally and conversationally, it is referred to almost invariably as 'le ipod'. probably because (phonetically speaking) "l'ipod" just sounds weird.
 
floyde said:
If you google:

"le ipod" - 239,000 results

"la ipod" - 52,000 results (even though this is also a very common way to refer to it in spanish).

I think you have to use the gender of its generic name (mp3 player) and forget about the brand (ipod). Now, if I only knew how to say "mp3 player" in french... le playeur des mp3s?? :)
Click to expand...
I've always heard it "El iPod" in Spanish, google shows several hundred thousand for el as opposed to la. The rule for Spanish generally is that if it comes from a language with gender (especially romance languages), you preserve it. If not, you deem it masculine. (hence, "el sandwich" although "la bocadilla" would be the native word in Spanish for it).
 
Today I went on a webpage that centers around rumors about a computer company and learned a little about french and spanish.

Combine that with the nice weather outside, and I'm now happy.
 
guifa said:
I've always heard it "El iPod" in Spanish, google shows several hundred thousand for el as opposed to la. The rule for Spanish generally is that if it comes from a language with gender (especially romance languages), you preserve it. If not, you deem it masculine. (hence, "el sandwich" although "la bocadilla" would be the native word in Spanish for it).
Click to expand...

Wow, I didn't know there was a rule for that, hehe. However, us mexicans tend to ignore such rules most of the time :eek: . I call it "la ipod" because its sexier.
Also, I think you meant "el bocadillo" which is spanish for "the snack". The correct, native way to say sandwich in spanish is "el emparedado", but people will give you a funny look if you ever say that in Mexico (in other countries it might be ok).
 
Ok, "le iPod" vs. "la iPod" is sort of not the best to search, because as "the iPod" it's always going to be merged together as l'iPod.:) Googling it was a great idea, though!
I decided to check "un iPod" vs. "une iPod" to check.
"Un iPod" = 2,010,000 results
"Une iPod" = 320 results

Even more, "un iPod" had it's first result as Apple's French iPod site. So, it's masculine, as everyone has thought. :)
 
I was going to say it's masculine .. as I am told that english words brought to French are usually masculine...

So.. yeah..
 
amateurmacfreak said:
Ok, I acknowledge this is quite a strange post, but I was wondering whethere iPod is masculine or feminine in French. It's probably masculine I'm guessing, and this is sort of a stupid post, but I got it added to our French vocab, so my French teacher wanted me to make sure on that. So I turned to you guys!:p
So... if anyone has an answer or thoughts about that would be awesome.:) :cool:
Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

i don't no anything about French but

When Apple is talking about iPod, they do not use "the" before it. So when you never would use the French "el or la"(those are the spanish ones because i do not know they french ones and English only has one "the")
 
zap2, the gender of iPod extends beyond just the le and la aspect. The crazy French insist upon making pretty much every word in a sentence gender-specific. Okay, well it's really just the adjectives and verbs, but it's still significant. :)
 
mad jew said:
zap2, the gender of iPod extends beyond just the le and la aspect. The crazy French insist upon making pretty much every word in a sentence gender-specific. Okay, well it's really just the adjectives and verbs, but it's still significant. :)
Click to expand...


yes i know that but i thought the no "the" thing important enough to talk about, even with me having no info of french launguage
 
It is masculine, because the term "baladeur mp3" is masculine. Any mp3 player will therefore be masculine by default. It's the same with cheese - "fromage" is masculine, therefore all other cheeses are masculine, brie, camembert, emmenthal, etc. Grammatical rule.

Lived and studied in Paris for three years, and bought my first iPod there, so I'm certain it's masculine from acquaintance. :)
 
The ultimate authority : Apple.

http://www.apple.com/fr/itunes/

Along the left you see « Quel iPod êtes-vous ? » (« Which iPod are you ?»), and if it were feminine it would be « quelle. »

Further down it says something about the « Nouvel iPod, » which would be « nouvelle » if it were feminine.
 
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