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Sep 11, 2023 · Understanding French gender rules for adjectives Nouns and articles are just part of what is affected by grammatical gender in French. Adjectives, or descriptive words, also need to agree with the gender (masculine/feminine) and number (singular/plural) of the nouns they describe. This is why many French adjectives can have four or five forms!
Unlike English, French nouns have a gender: they can be masculine or feminine. Nouns with le or un are masculine, and nouns with la or une are feminine. You should always learn nouns together with their articles to be sure of their gender. Learn all about the gender of nouns in French grammar with Lingolia, then test your knowledge in the free exercises.
The concept of French word gender therefore relies on a decoupling from any biological associations, and instead a focus on the role of French noun gender in speech and grammar. In other words, for most French nouns, gender is based strictly on how the word is spelled or pronounced rather than on any perceived masculine or feminine attributes of the person, place, or thing itself.
- What Is French Gender?
- How to Determine French Gender
- Quiz on Gender of French Nouns
- How to Master French Gender
In French, nouns have grammatical gender, which means they’re classified as masculine or feminine. For example: Masculine nouns: le livre (the book), le chat (the cat) Feminine nouns: la table (the table), la voiture (the car) When you learn a French word, you’ll typically see it paired with either its definite or indefinite article:
Most French teachers and fellow French speakers will tell you there’s no rhyme or reason to whether a noun is masculine or feminine. While there’s some truth to this, there are some general trends to get most nouns on lock. Be aware that there are some tricky counterintuitive noun genders, for example, le féminisme (feminism) is masculine and la ma...
Now that we’ve gone over all the basics about the gender of French nouns and the patterns they follow, it’s time to test what you’ve learned! Take the quiz below (without looking at the answers above!) and just refresh the page if you want to start over or retake it.
As you dive into the words and patterns above, you’ll want to have some go-to tools to apply what you’re learning. Here are some helpful places I recommend for practicing French noun gender: 1. There are many useful quizzes you can use to practice French gender, like this Sporcle endings quiz, this 10-question quiz from Talk in French or these “Tri...
Gender in French is not just a grammatical curiosity; it plays a crucial role in the structure of the language. The gender of a noun affects: – **Articles**: The definite articles “le” (masculine) and “la” (feminine) or the indefinite articles “un” (masculine) and “une” (feminine).
In French, there is no neutral gender like in some other languages, like German, so every noun has a grammatical gender, including the ones who describe things without a natural gender. In the dictionary , masculine nouns are indicated by the notation “ n. m. ” ( nom masculin ), or simply “ m. ”, and feminine nouns are indicated by the notation “ n. f. ” ( nom féminin ), or simply ...
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Nov 8, 2019 · Now you know how to identify the gender of French nouns. Now let’s see why knowing the gender of French words is so important. Here are the most important grammatical elements in French that change based on genders. Articles. In French, you have a masculine “the” (le) and a feminine “the” (la).
