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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) la nuit (f) la journée (f) le soleil (m) la lune (f) la voiture (f) |
le camion (m) the truck une banane (f) un citron (m) la chaussure (f) le sac (m) la terre (f) le moteur (m) |
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 |
une femme a woman une fille |
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 un chien un mouton un cochon |
une lionne (f) a female lion une chatte (f) une chienne (f) une brebis (f) une truie (f) |
More Basic French Lessons
- Previous Lesson – Greetings Part 2 In this basic French lesson we learn how to greet someone we know and are familiar with. These greetings are a little different than the ones we would use with someone we just met.
- Next Lesson – The L apostophe Learn all bout the L apostrophe as we expand on French articles and the gender of nouns and articles
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Leave A Reply (138 comments so far)
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Thomas
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jane
11 years agoam happy with the website, at least i can be able read basic french
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zainab
11 years agohello.I’m Libyan .I want to thank you.This is a great site.Now I can learn French easily.
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crystal
11 years agohello I’m having trouble, understanding the diffrence between a masculin and feminin nouns. How dose an acticle dermine whether is a masculin or feminin? Please help. Thank you.
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JeFrench
11 years agoThe article agrees with the gender of the noun. It does not determine its gender. But it helps you determine whether it’s masculin or féminin. Le is the (m). La is the (f). Un is a (m). Une is a (f). Du is some (m). De la is some (f).
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Nitin
11 years agoVery nice explanation….. It looks now easy to learn french….. Merci….
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sharifa
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ALEX McCLEAN
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