French articles are sometimes confusing for language students, because they have to agree with the nouns they modify and because they don't always correspond to articles in other languages. As a general rule, if you have a noun in French, there is virtually always an article in front of it, unless you use some other type of determiner such as a possessive adjective (mon, ton, etc.) or a demonstrative adjective (ce, cette, etc).
French has three different kinds of articles: The table below summarizes the different forms of French articles - click the links for detailed information about each type.
| French Articles | |||
| Definite | Indefinite | Partitive | |
| masculine | le | un | du |
| feminine | la | une | de la |
| in front of a vowel | l' | un/une | de l' |
| plural | les | des | des |
| Tip: When learning new vocabulary, make your vocabulary lists with a definite or indefinite article for each noun. This will help you learn the gender of each noun along with the word itself, which is important because the articles (as well as adjectives, pronouns, and just about everything else) change to agree with the gender of the noun. | |||
