As an English speaker learning German, I face endless confusion and frustration with many of the short question words that are “False Friends”
Such as:
Wer (where) - Actually means who.
Wo (Who) - Actually means where.
Wie (We) - Actually means how.
Was (was) - Actually means what.
Also (also) - Actually means so.
Will (will) - Actually means to want.
And the completely arbitrary gender assignments!
For example.
The year is: Das Jahr, a neuter word.
The month is: Der Monat, a masculine word.
And the week is: Die Woche, a feminine word.
And then there’s directly counter-intuitive examples of words that seem like they Should be a gender other than what they are, such as:
The little girl - Das Mädchen (Neuter, not feminine)
Breasts - Der Busen (Masculine! Boobs is masculine!)
Person - Die Person (Feminine! Why isn’t this word neuter?!"
The recommended way for remembering words’ genders is to always attach an adjective in front of a word when learning it.
Do not try to learn “die Nacht”.
Learn “stille Nacht”, which means “a quiet night”.
The -e in the word “stille” is there because the word is feminine. When you learn “stille Nacht”, you can automatically recognize it must be “die Nacht”.
Similarly: “Blödes Auto” means “Stupid car”. the ending -es means it’s das Auto.
And “Blöder Mann” means “stupid man”. -er, because it’s der Mann.
Same works in other languages as well. Buen viño = Good wine. Therefore: El viño. Persona rapida = A fast person. -a means it’s la persona.
Because a native speaker of German often hears adjectives in combination with words when they learn them, they automatically constantly receive the necessary information on the words’ genders.