French Nouns - Les Noms

A noun is a word that represents a thing, whether that thing is concrete (e.g., a chair, a dog) or abstract (an idea, happiness).

In French, all nouns have a gender - they are either masculine or feminine. It is very important to learn a noun's gender along with the noun itself because articles, adjectives, and some verbs have to agree with nouns; that is, they change depending on the gender of the noun they precede or follow. The gender of some nouns makes sense (homme [man] is masculine, femme [woman] is feminine) but others don't (personne [person] is always feminine, even if the person is a man!) The best way to learn the gender of nouns is to make your vocabulary lists with the definite or indefinite article. That is, 

Rather than a list like this...	make lists like this...
livre = book    chaise = chair    BAD LIST   :-(	un livre = book     une chaise = chair     GOOD LIST  :-)

so that you learn the gender with the noun. The gender is part of the noun and you will be much better off learning it now, as a beginner, than trying to go back after years of study and memorizing the genders of all the words you've already learned (I speak from experience). Also, some nouns have different meanings depending on whether they are masculine or feminine - learn more.

There are some tendencies in the gender of nouns, but there are always exceptions. Countries and names that end in e are usually (but not always) feminine. There are a few common patterns, but please don't use these as a way to avoid learning the genders of nouns - just learn each word as gender + noun and then you'll know them forever.

Ending	is usually	Exceptions
-age	masculine	une page une nage une cage	une plage une rage une image
-eau	masculine	l'eau	une peau
-ée	feminine	un lycée	un musée
-ion	feminine	un lion un scion un avion	un million un billion un bastion
-té	feminine	un comité	un invité
More gender patterns

  

Page 2: Gender and number of French nouns    

French Parts of Speech

  

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