If you ask German and Spanish speakers to, say, describe a bridge, "bridge" happens to be grammatically feminine in German, grammatically masculine in Spanish -- German speakers are more likely to say bridges are "beautiful," "elegant" and stereotypically feminine words. Whereas Spanish speakers will be more likely to say they're "strong" or "long," these masculine words. In English, it's fine to say, "He broke the vase.
" In a language like Spanish, you might be more likely to say, "The vase broke itself. " If it's an accident, you wouldn't say that someone did it. In English, quite weirdly, we can even say things like, "I broke my arm.
" Now, in lots of languages, you couldn't use that construction unless you are a lunatic and you went out looking to break your arm and you succeeded.
