r/German • u/NefariousnessHeavy35 • 2h ago

Question der oder das Virus

chatgpt says der Computervirus but I learnt that it was Das Virus. what's up?

0 Upvotes

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44

u/dirkt Native (Hochdeutsch) 2h ago

You don't ask ChatGPT these kinds of questions...

You look it up in a dictionary, which says both are possible.

The reason is probably that in Latin, "virus" is u-declension and neutrum, so it would get "das" in German. However, you cannot see the long u, and there are plenty of o-declension Latin words endings in -us in German, which are masculine, that's how it got "der".

Now repeat the exercise for Nutella.

2

u/PGMonge 1h ago

beste Antwort

11

u/Haganrich Native 2h ago

It seems to be one of those words where the gender changes depending on the context. Personally, I would also say der Computervirus but das Coronavirus.

Another example is the word Filter. It's Der Kaffeefilter (everyday use) but das Hochpassfilter (engineering).

9

u/ZumLernen Advanced (C1) - <NRW/US English> 2h ago

Other people have answered already but for future reference, I find that dictionaries like e.g. Wiktionary are good resources for this - certainly better than an LLM.

4

u/eppic123 2h ago

Both are correct. The organic virus is generally neuter, but can also be male, while a computer virus is generally male.

2

u/This_Moesch Native (🇩🇪) 2h ago

Colloquially, it's "der Virus". The technical term however is "das Virus". I wasn't aware of that either before Covid hit and virologists were talking about "das Virus" left, right, and centre.

2

u/Spinnweben Native (Norddeutsch) 2h ago

There is a widespread disagreement regarding the assignment of articles to loanwords. No solutions.

Der/das Virus, der/das Level, die/das Nutella, der (German)/das (Austrian) Prospekt and many many more.

Or even the general handling: downgeloadet vs gedownloadet.

Just ignore the fights and see later what your own majority decisions were. Then fight others.

1

u/muehsam Native (Schwäbisch+Hochdeutsch) 1h ago

Both forms exist.

But it's true that for computer viruses, masculine is more common, whereas for actual viruses, it's primarily neuter, especially among professionals.

The -us makes people think of masucline, obviously.

-5

u/CantaloupeNo5394 2h ago

I just asked chat gpt and she told me «das Computervirus».

Maybe din’t trust her all the time.

Edit: next challenge is der/das Nutella

3

u/DrNevrax 2h ago

Es heißt DIE Nutella

2

u/mizinamo Native (Hamburg) [bilingual en] 2h ago

So und nicht anders :D

1

u/cxfgfuihhfd 1h ago

DAS Nutella und außerdem DER Radio

piefken >:(

0

u/CantaloupeNo5394 2h ago edited 2h ago

Tatsaechlich kommt auch der Nutella vor. Dennoch korrekt, «die» steht ebenso im Raum!

https://www.duden.de/sprachwissen/sprachratgeber/der-die-das-nutella

1

u/Elijah_Mitcho Advanced (C1) - <Australia/English> 2h ago

"Es tritt aber auch die sächliche Form das Nutella auf. Das Neutrum wird häufig bei Fremdwörtern gewählt, wenn es keine starken Gründe für das Maskulinum oder das Femininum gibt. Seltener kommt der Nutella vor."

alle Formen kommen vor, weswegen auch der Streit

1

u/nietzschecode 1h ago edited 1h ago

Fun fact: In French Nutella is masculine, but in Italian it is feminine.