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Imagine you have 2 female and 3 male friends and you want to refer to all of them!

For example, you want to say: I love all my friends (all 5). How do you say such a thing in German?

Ich liebe alle meine(r) Freunde.

oder

Ich liebe alle meine(r) Freundinnen.

A bit confusing!

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3 Answers 3

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7

Either you use the traditional generic masculine, so simply

Ich liebe alle meine Freunde

or you make it explicit that it is a mixed group

Ich liebe alle meine Freundinnen und Freunde

Or choose another more inclusive version like Freund*innen... depending on your audience, they may mind it or not, and if they care, they might hate you for it or appreciate your consideration.

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  • 4
    Why is "Freund*innen" more inclusive than "Freundinnen und Freunde"? Doesn't it exclude non-binary, undecided, people?
    – bakunin
    Commented Aug 31, 2023 at 7:25
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    @bakunin allegedly 'Freund*innen' includes any person which does not identify as either, so more the spectrum than just female or male, indicated by the star. But I wouldn't know, but I can respect that
    – planetmaker
    Commented Aug 31, 2023 at 7:51
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    -1 for suggesting the use of wrong and therefore bad grammar. It should never be taught and never practiced by anyone caring about the correctness of their German.
    – EagleFliesBanana
    Commented Aug 31, 2023 at 8:42
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    @bakunin: The star is used for very obvious reasons only as an abbreviation in written German. In "normal" (i.e. spoken) German yo say either »alle meine Freunde« or »alle meine Freundinnen und Freunde«. The star in »Freund*innen« is a variation of the slash in »Freund/innen« which is just a shorthand form for the spoken »Freunde und Freundinnen«. So, the pronunciation of »Freund/innen« (and also of »Freund*innen«) is »Freunde und Freundinnen« or »Freundinnen und Freunde«. The novelty of the ...
    – Hubert Schölnast
    Commented Sep 2, 2023 at 10:36
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    How the "star [sic! it is an asterisk] [...]explicitely include[s] non-binary genders" eludes me. Especially when you said before that "the pronounciation of 'Freund*innen' is 'Freundinnen und Freunde'. What now?? If it is "Freundinnen und Freunde" then 53 genders Facebook knows are obviously reduced to 2 (feminine and masculine). If this would be a "more inclusive" form it would have to be spoken as "meine Freundinnen, Freunde, befreundeten Transgender-, Tertiär-, Non-binär-, Heute-sich-nicht-so-richtig-maskulin-fühlenden-, Unentschiedenen-, ..... -personen und -personinnen", yes?
    – bakunin
    Commented Sep 3, 2023 at 11:23
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Since in German the generic masculine is used, you can say "Ich liebe alle meine Freunde".

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3

You could go with

"Ich liebe meinen ganzen Freundeskreis",

in that way navigating around gendrification awkwardness.

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  • An interesting suggestion! The more overgeneralization, the better!
    – Nariman Asgharian
    Commented Sep 4, 2023 at 9:25

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