Quote Originally Posted by Gun-Cat View Post
Ohh, thanks for clearing that up! It has been some time since I looked into my German textbooks. Interesting to know! While we are at it, I fraintly remember reading some letters in german that had some fancy endings like "Student/-innen", mind explaining what that is all about? Is that an attempt to address both students male and female? Might be atleast tangentially related to this thread.
Most titles/grades/ranks in german are historically male.
With time there come female people into the same positions as males so the titles just get the extension "-in" to show that it is the female version.
"-innen" is the plural extension for female.
The military ranks get the addition "weiblich" (female) to indicate that it is a female soldier but this is only for correspondence and their papers for the daily use the addition wont be used.
Some even older or significant titles just have a male form but have their genders with Mr. or Mrs. before the title to indicate the gender.