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Gender of nouns · Genre des noms
editIn French, all nouns have a grammatical gender; that is, they are either masculin (m) or feminin (f).
Most nouns that express people or animals have both a masculine and a feminine form. For example, the two words for "the actor" in French are l'acteur (m) and l'actrice (f). The two words for "the cat" are le chat (m) and la chatte (f).
However, there are some nouns that talk about people or animals whose gender are fixed, regardless of the actual gender of the person or animal. For example, la personne (f) (the person) is always feminine, even when it's talking about your uncle! Le professeur (m) (the professor) is always masculine, even when it's talking about your female professor/teacher!
The nouns that express things without an obvious gender (e.g., objects and abstract concepts) have only one form. This form can be masculine or feminine. For example, la voiture (the car) can only be feminine; le stylo (the pen) can only be masculine.
Examples | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Masculine | Common endings used with masculine nouns | ||||
| le cheval | the horse | -age | le fromage | the cheese | |
| le chien | the dog | -r | le professeur[1] | the teacher | |
| le livre | the book | -t | le chat | the cat | |
| le bruit | the noise | -isme | le capitalisme | capitalism | |
| Feminine | Common endings used with feminine nouns | ||||
| la colombe | the dove | -ie | la boulangerie | the bakery | |
| la chemise | the shirt | -ion | la nation | the nation | |
| la maison | the house | -ite/-ité | la fraternité | brotherhood | |
| la liberté | liberty | -nce | la balance | the scales | |
| -lle | la fille | the girl | |||
| -nne | l’indienne | the Indian | |||
Irregularities and exceptions
editThere are three nouns in French where gender is altered when put in the plural form:
- amour (un amour passionné → des amours passionnées)
- orgue
- délice
There are many exceptions to gender rules in French which can only be learned. There are even words that are spelled the same, but have a different meaning when masculine or feminine; for example, le livre (m) means the book, but la livre (f) means the pound. Some words that appear to be masculine (like le photo, which is actually short for la photographie) are in fact feminine, and vice versa. Then there are some that just don't make sense; la foi is feminine and means a belief, whereas le foie means liver.
Plurals
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Irregular plurals
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