A1 · The nouns
Masculine or feminine
A category English simply does not have.
Every French noun is either masculine or feminine. There is no third box and no neuter — le or la, and nothing else. For people it usually follows the person; for things it is arbitrary, and unlike a German or a Spanish speaker you have nothing at all to transfer.
That is why a French noun is never learnt on its own. Not table, but la table. It costs nothing at the moment you first meet the word and saves a great deal later, because every adjective and every pronoun in the sentence will ask you for it.
Before a vowel both articles shrink to l' and the gender disappears from view. l'ami and l'amie sound identical. For those words only an adjective, a later pronoun or the dictionary will tell you.
Die Form
| masculine | le livre, le pain, le train |
| feminine | la table, la porte, la ville |
| hidden before a vowel | l’ami (m), l’amie (f) |
| a person: both forms | un acteur, une actrice |
Die Regeln im Einzelnen
The gender belongs to the word and is learnt with it.
la table, le bureauthe table, the desk
For people there are usually two forms.
un vendeur, une vendeusea salesman, a saleswoman
Before a vowel the article gives nothing away.
l’hôtel est grand, l’école est grandethe hotel is big, the school is big
Woran man es erkennt
- le
- la
- un
- une
Beispielsätze
La voiture est devant la maison.The car is in front of the house.
Le soleil brille, la lune est pâle.The sun is shining, the moon is pale.
C’est une actrice connue.She is a well-known actress.
L’appartement est petit.The flat is small.
Die typisch deutsche Falle
Aufgepasst
English «it» is not a third option waiting in French. Whatever the thing is — a car, a bridge, a slice of bread — it is il or elle, and the article in front of it has to be one or the other. There is nowhere to park a word whose gender you never learnt, and that is the practical reason the article is part of the vocabulary item rather than an extra.
Learn the noun with its article, or you have not learnt it.
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