Exception! 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. Who decides when words are feminine and masculine in French? I’m glad you ask. [de tribu] chief. le Royaume Uni, is masculine because the noun royaume (kingdom) is masculine in French. Une saison (a season) is feminine. Nouns with one of the following endings will usually be masculine: Un collège (a middle school, not a university). All rights reserved. Now making a list of French endings that show a French noun is feminine is not easy since there are so many exceptions! This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you les États-Unis (USA), les Pays-Bas (Netherlands), ATTENTION: le Pays de Galles (Wales) is singular and masculine. In addition to that, I included a vocabulary list about clothes and finally common phrases about origins.I will try to give examples using both vocabulary and grammar.That way it will be easy for you to see the words when they are separate and when they are in a sentence. Here are a few examples of feminine French nouns that follow the rules: Dans toute ma vie, je n’ai jamais goûté quelque chose de si délicieuse! It uses that info to recommend more examples and videos and give you a fully personalized experience. However, when it comes to the culinary field, the use of the feminine is still quite rare in my opinion. I remember when I tried to explain the concept of French noun gender to my mom. Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" employs multiple feminine rhymes as internal rhymes throughout.. With interactive captions, you can tap on any word to see an image, definition and useful examples. Copyright © by HarperCollins Publishers. (My new apartment costs less than the one downtown. Elle est chef, elle aussi, pas chef de rayon, chef de file. One of the major challenges that drives many of our students crazy is that every noun has a gender in French! Nevertheless, many still only have masculine forms. (Here’s an in-depth guide on how that works.). Among the highlights on the menu at La Dame de Pic by renowned chef Anne-Sophie Pic (above) is White Mille-Feuille dessert. Michèle, la France, la fillette, la passion, la nation…. In most languages adjectives have slightly different spellings for masculine and feminine. Bilingual dictionaries also use m. for masculine and f. for feminine. If the noun is plural then "The" becomes Les. And who can blame her? Un avocat (a lawyer) smoothly becomes une avocate. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc, or its affiliates. [de groupe] leader. (You must drink lots of water during exercise. To this day, she doesn’t understand why a table is feminine and a book is masculine. 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. Like English, all French nouns have a number: singular (one), as in la famille (the family), or plural (more than one), as in les enfants (the children). Now, this is where we get to some common nouns that feel extra rebellious and break the rules. All the nouns are masculine or feminine. J'étais devenue le chef de famille et Bernard ne sentait plus quel rôle il pouvait jouer. (We lost our dog because we forgot to tie him to the post.). I eagerly went home and shared with my monolingual mom the new things I was learning. masculine . - Some countries are plural: they're usually made up of several "parts" (states, lands). You’ll see many more examples of how this works in our list below. Please check your email for further instructions. There are more than 130 labels for items in your kitchen, closet, office and much more. So even if L’Académie Française ruled and officially stated that the word Covid (the COVID virus) is feminine… In reality, French people had decided way before that by using the masculine. (My aunt needs heart surgery. If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to learn French with real-world videos. 2- English adjectives are invariable, but French adjectives can change. With it, you will be able to study the following material: Tips for recognizing gender in language Additionally, what gender is Paris? Therefore, the best way to keep genders straight is to always learn new words with their genders. To learn more, visit her LinkedIn page. Good question! Read our series of blogs to find out more. Le livre — Les livres (= the books) Le garçon — Les garçons (= the boys) L’arbre — Les arbres (= the trees) La maison — Les maisons (= the house) La fille — Les filles (= the girls) My advice, learn the gender – masculin or feminine – at the same time you learn a new word. There are many diverse influences on the way that English is used across the world today. How to identify feminine and masculine nouns in French - The ending rule is THE one rule that can help you identify if a word is feminine or masculine. ), Vous devez boire beaucoup d’eau pendant l’exercice. Comme Messieurs Raffarin et Fillon, le chef de l'État s'est posé hier en sauveur suprême de " la retraite par répartition ". French, however, adds a little more to it: Every noun has a gender (genre), either masculine or feminine. FluentU is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. View usage for: For example, since la mer (the sea) is feminine, names of specific seas, such as la Méditerranée (the Mediterranean) are feminine as well. (Download). Today, although it would make logical sense to have feminine forms, that idea is met with resistance for complex reasons. (Hi everyone!) Like, you'd never say "I got an grade on my test," you say, "I got a grade on my test." Here are some to look out for so you can predict a noun’s gender that you don’t know. Showed us a skeleton, high school students and children pieces combine the masculine to look out so. Raffarin et Fillon, le chef de file high school students and children music videos, movie trailers, videos... And provide some examples of the sub-categories as well ’ applique souvent la pour. 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