Hello friends (salut les amis !). You are welcome to French Grammar Class for beginners on Ma Petite France. Do well to take note of all that is necessary and enjoy the class.
GENDER OF FRENCH NOUNS
Today, we are focusing on the gender of french nouns. In french grammar, the nouns are classified as either masculine or feminine. Whether they are animate or inanimate objects (living or non-living things), every noun in french has its own gender.
English speakers have constantly faced this battle of gender identification in while learning French, while there are no particular or absolute rules used to determine the gender of french nouns. The best rule has always been learning each noun together with its gender. That is to say, whenever you come across a french word try to know its gender and memorize it immediately.
To learn a noun together with its gender, you need to know that when the small variable "Le" is placed before the noun, it is a masculine noun and when "la" is placed before the noun, it is a feminine noun. We'll get to understand this better when we treat french articles.
That being said, I would like to show you some easy ways of knowing when a noun is masculine or feminine. But kindly note that even though this may seem to be a rule, it has its exceptions. And as a matter of fact, when it comes to french language, exceptions are often more in number than the rule. So, let's just call this a guide to knowing the gender of french nouns. Cool? Fine, let's roll!
1. The names of PERSONS OR ANIMALS of male sex are masculine. Examples: ¤ Le père - father ¤ Le frère - brother ¤ Le chien - mâle dog ¤ Le garçon - boy ¤ Le mari - husband ¤ Le coq - rooster/cock
2. The names of TREES are masculine. Examples:
¤ Le cocotier - coconut tree ¤ Le papayer - pawpaw tree ¤ Le manguier - Mango tree ¤ Le citronnier - Lemon tree
3. Days of the WEEK and MONTHS of the year are masculine nouns.
N.B: it is not Common to find the variable "le" before days of the weeks/ months of the year in french language. Most times, they stand alone without any article. But for the sake of this lesson, we will add the article "le".
Examples:
¤ le lundi - Monday ¤ le vendredi - Friday ¤ le janvier - January ¤ le décembre - December
4. The names of COUNTRIES whose endings are not "e" are often masculine nouns.
Examples:
¤ Le Bénin - Benin ¤ Le Nigéria - Nigeria ¤ Le Gabon - Gabon ¤ Le Togo - Togo ¤ Le Niger- Niger
This is where we will pause for today so we can have some ample time to study this and memorize the necessary things. We shall continue when we meet again. Until then, give serious attention to learning and improving on yourself.
Au revoir (ohrvwar) - good bye!
-Awodirepo Bayo
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