Learn French Online – Lesson 3 – Gender of Nouns and Articles

In French, every noun has a gender. It’s either masculin (male) or féminin (female).

You can tell the gender of a noun by the article that comes before it.

The English a will be un (m) or une (f).

The English the will be le (m) or la (f).

Examples:

une tasse (f) a cup un poisson (m) a fish la nuit (f) the night la journée (f) the day / daytime le soleil (m) the sun la lune (f) the moon la voiture (f) the car

le camion (m) the truck une banane (f) a banana un citron (m) a lemon la chaussure (f) the shoe le sac (m) the bag la terre (f) the earth le moteur (m) the engine

How do I know the gender of a French noun? I learn the noun with its article.

Qu’est-ce que c’est?
What is this?

C’est une tasse. (f)
It’s a cup.

For people, the grammatical gender is the same as the gender of the person.

un homme a man un garçon a boy

une femme a woman une fille a girl

For animals, it depends.

Some animals have a “general gender” by which we refer to them.

We always say:

un zèbre (m) a zebra

une girafe (f) a giraffe

If we want to be specific about the gender of the animal, we will add mâle or femelle to the noun.

un mâle
a male

une girafe mâle
a male giraffe

une femelle
a female

une girafe femelle
a female giraffe

Other animals have a different or modified noun for the female:

un lion a lion  un chat a cat un chien a dog un mouton a sheep un cochon a pig

une lionne (f) a female lion  une chatte (f) a female cat une chienne (f) a female dog une brebis (f) a sheep une truie (f) a female pig

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