Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

71%
+3 −0
Q&A How do I translate into a gendered language where the gender would be a spoiler?

Go with אתה. While not natively Israeli, I am currently living in Israel. And from what I know, speaking the language and seeing what goes on here, when you don't know the gender, it's generally d...

posted 6y ago by Mithical‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-30T14:20:36Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33885
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T08:11:21Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33885
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T08:11:21Z (almost 5 years ago)
# Go with אתה.

While not natively Israeli, I am currently living in Israel. And from what I know, speaking the language and seeing what goes on here, when you don't know the gender, it's generally defaulted to male.

For instance, people will generally go "יש מישהו שיודע...", not "יש מישהי שיודעת...", unless the target audience is primarily female... such as in the documentation for sherut l'umi, which is written in the feminine.

People will default to male when it's not known... but also, among the younger generation (for reference, I'm a teenager, I interact with teens a lot), people are using male pronouns and stuff _when talking face to face with a girl or woman_. It's crazy, but in modern colloquial Hebrew among the younger population, the distinction is becoming obsolete. People are just using male more and more.

So in addition to the fact that male is the actual default, the male pronouns are also coming into a sort of accepted use even for when you know that you're talking to someone who would normally get feminine pronouns. Seems pretty clear to me that אתה is the sensible choice here.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-02-28T22:35:04Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 33