When picking a gender for a loanword into German, the first priority generally goes to how the word sounds, then the gender of the word in the original language, then the gender of the equivalent word in German.
So say, like the Italian word 'cappuccino' is treated as masculine (der Cappuccino) because 'cappuccino' is masculine in Italian (il cappuccino). But the French word 'garage' becomes "die Garage" despite it being masculine in the original French (le garage) because nouns ending in -e has a tendency to be feminine in German.
When words are borrowed from languages without gender, the usual rule is to use the gender of the equivalent German word. So, we have phrases like "der Miami Beach" (because Strand is masculine) and die Card (die Karte).
This rule generally also holds for Japanese loanwords. Examples include "das Katana" (das Schwert) and "der Sake" (der Wein). By a similar vein, 艦隊 should also be "die Kantai" (die Flotte).
When picking a gender for a loanword into German, the first priority generally goes to how the word sounds, then the gender of the word in the original language, then the gender of the equivalent word in German.
So say, like the Italian word 'cappuccino' is treated as masculine (der Cappuccino) because 'cappuccino' is masculine in Italian (il cappuccino). But the French word 'garage' becomes "die Garage" despite it being masculine in the original French (le garage) because nouns ending in -e has a tendency to be feminine in German.
When words are borrowed from languages without gender, the usual rule is to use the gender of the equivalent German word. So, we have phrases like "der Miami Beach" (because Strand is masculine) and die Card (die Karte).
This rule generally also holds for Japanese loanwords. Examples include "das Katana" (das Schwert) and "der Sake" (der Wein). By a similar vein, 艦隊 should also be "die Kantai" (die Flotte).
