Although learning word endings that tend to be masculine or feminine is a more all-encompassing method, learning categories that are commonly masculine or feminine can be pretty helpful, too. As you delve into the fun world of the past tense, pronouns and compound tenses, you’ll find the gender of your nouns becoming more and more important. You could say, “They’re just words.” But the truth is, the logic behind this rule was probably that males are more important and powerful than females. le Mozambique (Mozambique) If the singular noun ends in -s, -x or -z, no further-s is added in the plural. French plural are more complex than English plurals. -it, -est As you can see, these categories don’t cover every subject in the French language, so this method should be used with another one to be able to guess a word’s gender with accuracy. Of course, not everything can be neatly put into a category that has all or mostly masculine or feminine nouns, but there are a decent amount of categories out there, and maybe, as you learn French, you’ll notice patterns and come up with categories that make sense and work for you, in addition to the established ones. But there are so many French words! les petits enfants). Please take a look at the following sentences to get a practical understanding on how to make adjectives plural in French. I got used to associating the nouns in the song with the words around them that signified their gender. After hours trying to figure out why féminisme (feminism) is masculine and masculinité (masculinity) is feminine, you’ve come to the most logical conclusion: the gender of French nouns was randomly chosen by a bunch of sadistic linguists. Gender agreements are important in both conversation and writing. Fellow world travelers, this one’s for you! So many! "Hello all!Our French word of the day is 'les copains'Thinking what it means?It means 'Masculine (Plural)' Wondering how to pronounce it? Vocabulary; Grammar Readings; Adjectives. OR J’en ai marre de cette chaise ! Example: bon (good), bonne, bons, bonnes. Feminine plural: bonnes. They could only agree on the gender of 17 of those! Also, French adjectives can have up to four forms: singular masculine, plural masculine, singular feminine, and plural feminine. If a city or place names ends in -e, then it’s generally feminine. [ˈtriste ] adjective. You can see some signs of social change in in the French language itself. This is a pretty standard rule (thankfully easy to remember) with only a handful of exceptions, noted below: le Mexique (Mexico) You can see this, for example, in the case of English, which did have genders in its older forms, as well as a formal and informal “you”. le Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe). Tu es allé(e). Examples: la rougeur (the redness), la largeur (the width), la pâleur (the paleness). Notice the subject is plural, but tout doesn’t change to tous. You may have heard that there is only one way to know the gender of a noun: to learn it by heart. -er The partitive articles or “some” in English: du (masculine) la moins triste. The French translation for "private (masculine plural)" is privés. There may seem to be no sense to it—and often there isn’t—but it’s something us French speakers must try to conquer, both beginners and fluent speakers alike! From what we know about ancient texts and fragments of words, as well as by trying to reconstruct primitive languages based on modern-day language families, it seems that humans began by classifying nouns as living or not living. If the singular noun ends in -s,-x or -z, no further-s is added in the plural. There are exceptions, but if you know these patterns, you’ll know how most adjectives change based on the gender of the noun they modify. Feminine singular: triste Except for non-native speakers who would inherently expect a veil, an accessory typically worn by females, to be the feminine one…. un étudiant, une étudiante (student) Old: vieux, vieil, vieille, vieux, vieilles. You can find a pretty thorough list of them here, although note that this source also includes homonyms (words that sound the same but are spelled differently), which don’t exactly pose the same challenge. All French nouns have an arbitrary “gender” of masculine or feminine, which unfortunately doesn’t follow rhyme or reason and consequently just needs to be memorized. Many other professions can now also be feminized, since the concept has been officially recognized by the Académie Française (a ruling that was only made in 2019). The most common translation will be triste in the feminine and masculine singular and tristes … But…but…can’t we just fudge it? Most nouns ending in -ou take an -s in the plural, with a few exceptions. Once you confidently know your masculines from your feminines in French, you’ll be giving the French natives a run for their money. Il est tout content d’être avec moi. Vous êtes allé(e)(s) Having a conversation? If the masculine form of an adjective ends in – l or – n , then you make it feminine by doubling the consonant. A few adjectives have irregular masculine plurals. Who cares if we get it right? la plus triste. Feminine singular: fatiguée -ment Form the singular feminine of singular masculine adjectives ending in é by adding ‐ e, as shown in Table 2. Some common family vocabulary: -ude, -ade This may have had practical, as well as religious, purposes. Most adjectives have a different form depending on whether they modify a masculine or a feminine word. It’s thought that as time went on and religion became more organized and, in most places, less animistic, gender seemed like a good way to keep nouns organized. This makes it relatively easy to identify noun phrases. The association needs to be personal, since it has to be something you will easily remember. -ée (spettacolo, condizioni) miserable. If a city or a place name does not end in -e, then it’s most likely masculine. Luckily, French law today considers male and female citizens equal, with equal rights. French Together founder and genuinely nice guy Benjamin Houy has created a simplified list that’s easier to remember. So, yes, this does all mean that French noun genders are completely arbitrary in many cases. If the masculine form of an adjective ends in -er or –et, then you’ll add an accent for the feminine. For example, in German, there’s a third gender: neuter. While there is no precise data available, you can consider that you’ll be right 80% of the time if you use this simplified list. In addition, when you have a direct object in the past tense and are using the helping verb avoir, then you’ll have to make the verb agree with the direct object. Triste (sad) Masculine singular: triste Feminine singular: triste Masculine plural: tristes Feminine plural: tristes. Most combinations of vowel + consonant + –e will be feminine, such as: -ine, -elle, -esse, -ette, etc. But French people decided to use gender to be sure that the meaning is clear. Because Triste ends with E, it is the same for both genders. Here are some categories of French words that are typically masculine: Here are some categories of French words that are typically feminine: For more details about these categories, you can have a look at this list or this one, which includes links to two French podcasts about how to tell what gender a word is. Knowing the gender of French nouns is crucial to being able to replace it with a pronoun, use the correct article (“the” or “a(n)”), or use an adjec… This website lets you answer questions about different subjects (including French), and with every question you get right, ten grains of rice are donated to people in need. This concept can be aggravating for French learners, but with patience and practice you'll be able to describe any object like a natural. The gender of words in French – as well as their grammatical and social implications – can be complicated. It’s been years since I babysat that little boy, and years since I’ve been speaking French, so when I say or write those words today, the song doesn’t necessarily come to mind, but there was a time when it did for some of them! Actually, this is somewhat correct, as we’ll see a little later in this article! À la cantine, Daniel a choisi une pomme, une soupe, et un sandwich. -é Nous sommes allé(e)s. Many translated example sentences containing "masculine plural" – French-English dictionary and search engine for French translations. Ils sont tous sur son plateau. Je suis triste, mais tout le monde est triste au Québec, aujourd'hui.». Elle n’est vraiment pas confortable. Associating each noun with such a vivid image helps you remember its gender more easily. Share. No matter how much research you do or how many linguistics classes you take in college (trust me), you’ll never get a definitive answer to this. Feminine singular: contente Learning English becomes fun and easy when you learn with movie trailers, music videos, news and inspiring talks. can take anywhere. Still, whether there’s logic to them or not, genders are a part of the French language and understanding French gender rules is essential when it comes to speaking and writing correctly. -consonant + -ie. Just make sure that your comment is relevant to the content of the article and adds to the conversation. Example: amoureux (romantic), amoureuse, amoureux, amoureuses. Most nouns that end with a consonant will be masculine. If you’re just getting started and need some foundation, check out this video for a lesson on adjective agreements. -ure This grammar point confuses a lot of English speakers because for the most part, English … French adjectives change based on the gender and number of the noun they modify, 13 common French mistakes that’ll make you feel awkward, -an, -and, -ant, -ent, -in, -int, -om, -ond, -ont, -on (but not after s/c¸), -air, -er, -erf, -ert, -ar, -arc, -ars, -art, -our, -ours, -or, -ord, -ors, -ort, -ir, -oir, -eur, -aie, -oue, -eue, -ion, -te, – ée, -ie, -ue, -asse, -ace, -esse, -ece, -aisse, -isse/-ice, -ousse, -ance, -anse, -ence, -once, -enne, -onne, -une, -ine, -aine, -eine, -erne, -ande, -ende, -onde, -ade, -ude, -arde, -orde, -euse, -ouse, -ase, -aise, -ese, -oise, -ise, -yse, -ose, -use, -ache, -iche, -eche, -oche, -uche, -ouche, -anche, -ette, -ete, – ête, -atte, -otte, -oute, -orte, -ante, -ente, -inte, -onte. For example, la lune, ta plume, un mot, ta porte. B: Oui, je l’ai faite. So many exceptions! In fact, if you want to immerse yourself in French, then you’ve got to know your le from your la (definite articles) and your une from your un (indefinite articles). But I’ve got news for you: Even native French speakers occasionally have trouble with it! FRENCH QUIZ 9 - TEST French ADJECTIVES Agreement Rules Masculine Feminine Singular Plural - YouTube. Luckily there aren’t a huge number of French words with different meanings in different genders. French adjectives change based on the gender and number of the noun they modify. For example, if you tap on the word "crois," you'll see this: Practice and reinforce all the vocabulary you've learned in a given video with learn mode. Other ways to learn and remember the gender of French words, How to learn and practice French noun gender. Alysa Salzberg is an American writer, worrier, teacher, and cookie enthusiast who has lived in Paris, France, for more than a decade. Let’s explore why genders exist in the French language, why they’re important, and how you can finally be sure of which gender to use a vast majority of the time. So, for example, orange is masculine when it’s a color and feminine when it’s a fruit. Shopping. Introduction ; Regular Adjectives ; Sameness ; Doubled Last Consonant ; Er & Et endings ; Odd Ball Adjectives ; Demonstratives ; Indefinites ; Placement ; Odd Plurals ; Possesives ; Odd Plurals. In this case, if you’re talking about a group of nouns and just one person/thing is masculine, the adjective you use to describe the group will be masculine, as well. However, if the adjective already ends in 'e' in the masculine… The only time you would use the feminine plural version is if the group is all female. Elle est allé. Of course, the best method is just memorizing the gender when you learn the noun but, hey, nobody’s perfect. Click here to get a copy. For example, Voici la robe que tu as achetée pour Juliette. -oir If you like learning French on your own time and from the comfort of your smart device, then I'd be remiss to not tell you about FluentU. Feminine plural: contentes, Masculine singular: fatigué -euse -ing And remember the French rule of masculine words always having dominance over feminine ones. le Bélize (Belize) Let's see how you pluralise simple adjectives: ... "Plurals in French" by www.frenchspanishonline.com. (I’m sick of this chair ! And of course, we’re all looking for excuses to play games and donate rice. des (plural). This isn’t all without politics of course. Masculine plural: tristes Rude, racist and off-topic comments will be deleted. Be aware that with some verb tenses, you’ll need to be certain about what gender your noun is in order to correctly conjugate. les plus tristes. The endings are the same as when you use the helping verb être. a decent human being), the fact that, in French, masculine nouns take precedence over feminine ones may bum you out a little. You’ll find it below this first list. The method that’s been shown to be the most effective is…. Feminine plural: fatiguées, Masculine singular: bon But with genders attributed to words in a way that seems completely arbitrary, how can you ever learn the genders of every French noun? While there’s some truth to this, largely due to the long-term evolution of the French language, there are some rules (and exceptions) to get most nouns on lock. triste {adjective masculine/feminine} C'est triste pour la politique agricole et triste pour le contribuable. Elle m’a prêté sa voiture pour la journée. French only dropped the neuter gender, and so here we are. A lot of the questions are vocabulary questions, including the gender of the noun in the question. Cléa, Hélène, Rose, and Paul like movies. But it can be a very helpful way to quickly guess the gender of words that do fall into these categories, or if you’re working with these categories (say, talking about the colors of a painting), you’ll know you can keep the gender the same. There’s a linguistic theory that as languages evolve, they become less complex. les (plural). timide. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. That means that not only do concepts that may reinforce gender stereotypes persist in the language used for some French professions; unpredictable gender rules do, too. After a while, you’ll see that you can intuitively guess the gender of a noun based on its ending. When it comes to learning genders in French, I feel like I’m living proof of what the McGill study found. In the perfect tense and other compound tenses (such as the past perfect and the past conditional) when you use être as your helping verb, you’ll need to make an agreement with your subject. Makes total sense. In a 2008 study , native French speakers were asked to determine the gender of 93 words (which it turns out were all masculine). Share your thoughts in the comments section! Feminine singular. Keyword: MOST. In French, you have a masculine “the” (le) and a feminine “the” (la). Why do some languages have gendered nouns, while others don’t? How to Make Adjectives Plural in French. For a lot of adjectives, the feminine form is formed by adding an 'e' to the masculine form. The gender of a noun can change the adjectives applied to it and some verb tenses, not to mention it’ll determine which pronouns to use. -eau, -eu This means the adjective is either: Let’s take several adjectives as examples.
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