Diminutive

German class today was a waste of time, owing to the two most irritating members of our group upping their input. However, I did learn one useful piece of „grammar“, courtesy of my friend rather than the teacher however. We both struggle with knowing* whether a noun is classed as masculine (der) feminine (die) or neuter (das)**, on the way home E remarked that everytime a noun is diminutised by putting „chen“ on the end, it‘s neutered...I can feel my vocabulary shrinking and yet growing at the same time.

* it‘d be nice to say „remembering“, but for this to be the case I’d have had to have noted the der/die/das the first time I stumbled across the German word for corpse (for example, a random word I picked up years ago from I don’t know where)
** this knowledge is important if you then want to get the adjective ending correct (can you hear me rolling my eyes?)