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Grammar
Objective: Categorise new nouns as masculine or feminine and learn each noun together with its article.
| Element | Masculine | Feminine | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indefinite article | un livre | une table | a book / a table |
| Definite article | le livre | la table | the book / the table |
| Adjective agreement | un petit livre | une petite table | a small book / a small table |
| Plural definite | les livres | les tables | the books / the tables |
Maison is feminine because gender is fixed per noun, not predictable from meaning, so each noun must be memorised with its article.
Soleil is masculine because everyday objects carry fixed grammatical gender, and the assignment is grammatical rather than logical.
Le marks a masculine noun (livre) and la marks a feminine noun (table) in the same sentence.
Problème is masculine despite the -e ending. Solution is feminine. The pairing illustrates two unrelated genders in one phrase.
Both nouns refer to natural objects with no biological sex, yet soleil is masculine and lune is feminine by convention.
Personne is grammatically feminine even when it refers to a male. The article depends on the word, not the person.
Possessive adjectives also carry gender. Mon precedes the masculine père and ma precedes the feminine mère.
5 exercises · about 8 minutes
The -e ending does not reliably signal feminine because problème belongs to a Greek-origin group of masculine exceptions.
Personne is grammatically feminine, so every adjective describing it must also take the feminine form.
Courage is masculine and takes du. Patience is feminine and takes de la. The gender distinction survives inside partitive articles.
Two siblings of different biological sex are also assigned different grammatical genders: frère is masculine, sœur is feminine.