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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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Zoe
10 years ago -
Mariana
10 years agoMuchas gracias!! Me encantan las lecciones!! Saludos desde México
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Marvin Webster
10 years agoJ’aime JeFrench!
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meluehrmeger
10 years agoI finally understand the difference between bonjour and salut.
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Joshua Man
10 years agoThis blows away all the other French classes on the internet. Thanks!
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Mercedes
10 years agoThis is such a cool web site. It is like having a free online version of Rosetta Stone – the French version. That is easily a savings of at least $200, which is the price for the retail version of the boxed package off the shelf. And I go further on to say that this is video version is even slightly better because it is more visually intuitive and also because there is no installation required.
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Bonjure, i have a querry, i cant differentiate between the gender without article, either it is masculine or faminine.
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JeFrench
10 years agoThat’s right, you use the article to guess the gender of the noun. That’s why we learn a new noun with its article.
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Barbara Greenslade
10 years agoI just wanted to congratulate you on this wonderful website. I have recently started taking French lessons and your site is so help with helping me understand it better. It is very well set out and the explanation of each topic is excellent. Thank you very much.
Kind regards
Barbara -
Ivan
10 years agoIt is wonderful being on the site learning quite well and im appreciating the work done
merci beau coup pour l’excellent travail
A Plus
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Baljit
10 years agoThe lesson was explained very clearly and easy to follow, thanks for your brilliant french course!
Your videos so much easier than regular French classes!