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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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Maryanne
10 years ago -
Earlene
10 years agoI am really enjoying these French lesson videos. They are easy to follow, but like anything, it takes a few practices to really memorize the information. These lessons are just as effective as those from the Rosetta Stone software, and a lot less expensive. You can’t beat the absolutely FREE price.
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i luv this im 11 and i decided to start learing french he is a good teacher he should b a teacher at my school lol id hire u
i like french -
Jimmy
10 years agoAlthough I can’t speak it fluently yet I am having a blast learning from your videos. They are so simplistic that it makes it like you are a little kid again learning English. Thank you so much for the article I am hoping to get the entire family hooked.
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David Wang
10 years agoThank you for these awesome videos! You are the best!
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Jean
10 years agoThis is what I had the biggest problem with the whole time, I have a hard time deciding why a cup would be feminine and not masculine. And I think that is because it is an object that is neither male or female. Thank you for all the interesting lessons I will keep them and continue to study them when ever I get a chance. By 2013 I hope to know French.
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noor
10 years agoamaaaaaaaaaaazing lessons
, thank you -
Cheryl
10 years agoJefrench is the best French teacher!
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stankiman
10 years agoYour lessons are very good and simple to follow. Thank you Jefrench!
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Raymond
10 years agoI love how clear and simple this blog presents these French lessons. I was able to learn some basic pleasantries in French rather easily. I have a friend who I called today and spoke to him using my newly learned words and he was quite impressed with my vernacular. I think I already forgot most of what I learned in that first lesson, but that is not a reflection on the lesson – it’s my memory.
I had a teacher that compared French, Italian and Spanish together sometimes and it would be hard to tell what she was saying because to me they sounded nothing alike and the rules were completely different just like American English is different than what they are used to as well.