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Gender of a noun in a sentence

German Language Asked on October 25, 2021

I have encountered a sentence in our A1 book as:

Haben Sie schon mal eine Radtour gemacht? then, another person answers that: Ja, das habe ich schon gemacht.

However, we know that Tour is feminine, and its article should be die not das. Thus, my question is: Does the above sentence have a correct structure?

One Answer

TL;DR Yes.

Indeed, the word Tour is feminine. So, it's correct to say something like Die Tour war lang. The die would be the word's article.
It's valid to use die in this case as person B. However, this means one very specific bike tour. Using die would be

Yes, I did this tour

in English. But person A asks about bike tours in general (which is also underlined by the schon mal).
Person A in English:

Have you ever made a bike tour?

The person B in your example uses das. Person B refers to the action of doing a bike tour in general, not one specific tour. Person B could also answer:

Ja, ich habe schon [mal] eine Radtour gemacht.

Normally, one inserts mal almost always, especially in this construction.

The point here is that it's undefined which tour is meant. The article eine is the point. If person B said

Ja, ich habe schon [mal] die(se) Radtour gemacht.

then it would be clear. However, the das refers to the "generic action" of doing a bike tour (something like eine Radtour machen).
The das of person B in your question is a demonstrative pronoun (Demonstrativpronomen).

Edit: Thanks for clarification @amadeusamadeus; see the answer to "das geht leider nicht" - which noun is the "das" here an Artikel for?.

Answered by Crsi on October 25, 2021

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