Gender and number have important roles to play in French grammar, as many adjectives, articles, nouns, pronouns, and verbs have different forms based on gender and/or number.
Grammatical gender defined.
Grammatical number defined.
There are numerous ways in which plurals affect French grammar.
How to determine the gender of French compound nouns.
Lesson on making compound nouns plural.
French gender is a constant headache for many students of French. There's no simple way to know the gender of every noun other than just learning the gender with each word. But there are some patterns in suffixes and word endings that can help you to figure out the gender of many French nouns.
French nouns with identical pronunciation (and possibly spelling as well) may have different meanings depending on whether they are masculine or feminine.
In both French and English, many nouns can be singular or plural: un homme (one man), deux hommes (two men), la chaise (the chair), les chaises (the chairs). But there are quite a few French nouns that can only be plural, including some related to religion and material possessions.
There are also quite a few French nouns that can only be singular, including abstractions, matter, and sciences.
Nouns are not always singular in both French and English. Page one of this lesson is a list of words that are singular or uncountable in English but plural in French. Page two has nouns that are singular, uncountable, or invariable in French but plural or countable in English.
Test yourself on the gender of French words.
