My first thought is that perhaps you are using your logic backwards. Instead of progressing through a list of possibilities, it might be better to test in reverse.

Admittedly my familiarity with German is limited to reading road signs and asking the border guards if we were entering or leaving Germany, as winding through the alps along the border you can lose track of that sort of thing, the road following geography more than political boundaries.

Maybe what you are saying is this:

$g = "m";
$q = "singular";

if ($word =~ /en$/)
{
     $g = "f";
     $q = "plural" if ($word =~ /inen$/);
}
[download]

Of course, I am just condensing your logic here.

The big question is "Where are you going with this?", because that will have a large bearing on the sophistication of your methodology.

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