Grammaire 2: more on gender
On étudie !
We saw in section 2 of this book that all French nouns are either masculine or feminine. The concept of gender refers to the grammatical classification of nouns (and pronouns) and this is not unique to French: numerous languages spoken around the world do, such as romance languages (Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, etc.), German, Romanian, Russian and Hindi.
Understanding gender in French is essential for proper communication, as it affects word agreements and sentence structure. While it can be challenging for non-native speakers to grasp, practice and exposure to the language can help solidify understanding.
While nouns that refer to a male (an uncle) are usually masculine (un oncle) and those referring to a female are usually feminine (la présidente Kamala Harris), the gender of nouns referring to things and abstractions is arbitrary. We recommend that you pay special attention to the attached singular indefinite article ‘a’ (un, une i.e. masculine/feminine) and learning these in combination when learning (writing) new vocabulary.
However, it can often be inferred from the ending of the word and memorising the following will help you achieve language fluency.
Typically, words ending in -age, -ment, -eau, -eur, -ier and –isme are usually masculine and those ending in -ion, -té, -ette, -ence, -ie and -ure are usually feminine.
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Watch this video tutorial that explains the ending rule: Identify masculine and feminine.
