Gender and Articles
This grammar section addresses the use of gender and articles as raised in Lesson 3 of Chapter 1. The chart below will demonstrate in a snapshot all you need to know about gender and articles in French.
Gender
A. French adjectives change their endings to agree with the gender of the noun they modify. Usually, this simply means adding -e to the adjective to agree with a feminine noun. However, in some other cases, the adjective will have two completely different forms. Look at the examples below to see what I mean:
Marc est grand et Marie est grande aussi. Marc is tall, and Marie is also tall.
François est vieux et Charlène est vieille aussi. François is old, and Charlène is also old.
B. French nouns are classified as either masculine or feminine. But I should add that this classification is purely grammatical. As a French speaker, I do not see cars or computers as being “male” or “female”. On the other hand, note that if a noun refers to a male, it will usually be of the masculine gender, and if a noun refers to a female, it will usually be of the feminine gender. For example, copain refers to a male friend, buddy, or boyfriend, whereas copine is used for a female friend or a girlfriend.
Articles
C. Articles in French also change form according to the gender of the nouns they accompany. Here are the definite and indefinite article for nouns in the singular form. (We will deal with the plural a little later).
| GENDER | ||
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | le livre | un livre |
| Feminine | la table | une table |
D. Before a word that starts with vowel (a, e, i, o, u) or a silent h, the definite articles le and la become l’.
l’homme the man
l’université the university
I hope you found these explanation helpful. If you still want more input on this subject, I encourage to do so in the comment area below. Merci beaucoup!
Are there adjectives used in masculine and feminine without adding the letter e????
Thank you
Example: The adjective triste (sad) doesn’t need an additional e to make it feminine.
can i add besides the word triste the words jeune and mince.
Il east jeune. Elle est jeune.
prof_frenchtastic sometimes i see the adjective before the noun and sometimes after the noun.Is there any rule for that point?
Thank you
oui, jeune and mince will also work in this case. As for the position of adjectives, that is, before or after a noun, there is indeed a rule to follow. Most French adjectives will come AFTER the noun they describe. For example, Une étoile scintillante (a shiny star), or Un homme paresseux (A lazy man). However, the adjectives belonging to these categories: Beauty/Age/Good (or bad)/Size as well as ‘même’ (same) and ‘autre’ (other) will come BEFORE the noun. So for example: J’ai vu une petite souris. (I saw a little mouse) – the adjective petite belongs to the SIZE category and therefore will be place before the noun SOURIS (mouse). I will post a lesson on that a bit later. Hope this helps,
Merci!
I’m still waiting for the lesson about the position of adjectives.
please, don’t be late.
Thank you
Dear Simoziko, I am quite flattered by your great enthusiasm and motivation to learn this beautiful language and I can assure you that I would have spent much more time creating new lesson if I didn’t have some other professional and family duties. Unfortunately, that is not the case and I can only do so much at this moment. Please bear with me for now, or feel free to visit other French language sites such as Wordreference dot com or French about dot com if this is an emergency. Until then, I will continue answering any questions to be best of my abilities and if time allows. Best regards,
herman
I’m very sorry my dear teacher.Take your time to answer our questions. May God help you?
I like this site and the way you teach your students.
Have a nice day.
Simo