Language/French/Grammar/Gender-of-the-noun-indicated-by-its-final-letter

Gender signalled by the final letters of the written forms of nouns

Bonjour! French learners 😀

Nouns in French are either masculine or feminine. Unfortunately, there is no easy rules for predicting the gender of a noun.

Masculine

Many nouns whose singular written form ends in a consonant are masculine:

• -c un franc a franc (un lac a lake, le public the public, etc.)
• -d le bord the edge (le fond the bottom, le pied the foot, etc.)
• -g un camping a camp site (un parking a car park, un shampooing a shampoo, etc.)
• -1 un détail a detail (le travail work, le soleil the sun, etc.)
• -r le fer iron (l'hiver winter, un couloir a corridor, etc.)
• -t le chocolat chocolate (le climat the climate, un jouet a toy, un poulet a chicken, le ciment cement, un jugement a judgement, etc.)

Exceptions are typically found with nouns which end in -n, -r, -s, -t, and -x:

une maison	a house
une cuiller	a spoon
la mer	the sea
une tour	a tower
une fois	one time
une dent	a tooth
une nuit	a night
une jument	a mare
une croix	a cross

Nouns ending in -on are usually masculine {un poisson 'a fish', un sillon 'a furrow', etc. Although une chanson 'a song' is an exception). But nouns ending in -aison, -(s)sion, -Hon or -xion are usually feminine:

une comparaison	a comparison
une liaison	a liaison
une maison	a house
une raison	a reason
une saison	a season
une décision	a decision
la tension	tension, blood pressure
une vision	a vision
une émission	a broadcast
une connexion	a connection

• Exception: un bastion a bastion

Nouns ending in -eur are usually masculine {un ordinateur 'a computer', le bonheur 'happiness', etc.), but the following frequently-used nouns are feminine:

la chaleur	the heat
une couleur	a colour
une erreur	a mistake
une fleur	a flower
la largeur	the width
la longueur	the length
la peur	fear
la profondeur	the depth

Many nouns whose singular written form ends in a vowel (but excluding –e without an acute accent) are masculine, although there are a significant number of exceptions:

-ai

un délai	a time limit
un essai	an attempt (a 'try' in rugby)
un emploi	a job
un roi	a king

Exceptions: la foi faith, une loi a law, une paroi a wall

le café	the café or coffee
un fossé	a ditch
le marché	the market
le thé	tea

Exception: une clé a key

-eau

un couteau	a knife
un marteau	a hammer
le niveau	the level
le réseau	the network
un tableau	a picture

• Exceptions: l'eau water, la peau skin

-i

l'abri	shelter
un cri	a shout
un pari	a bet
un pli	a fold
un raccourci	a short-cut

-ou

un bijou	a jewel
un caillou	a pebble
un clou	a nail
un genou	a knee
le hibou	the owl

Feminine

Many nouns whose singular written form ends in -e without an acute accent are feminine:

• l'audace daring, la façade the front, the outside, une salade a salad
• une baie a bay, la haie the hedge

• une douzaine a dozen, une fontaine a fountain
• une ambulance an ambulance, une flèche an arrow
• une thèse a thesis, une grève a strike, etc.
• une araignée a spider, une bougie a candie, etc.

But there are a large number of exceptions to this rule:

-isme

Nouns ending in -isme are masculine: le romantisme 'romanticism', le tourisme 'tourism', un idiotisme 'an idiom (linguistic)', etc.

-ède, -ege, -eme

un intermède	an interlude
un cortège	a procession
un piège	a trap
un stratège	a strategist
un poème	a poem
le système	the system
le thème	the theme or translation into a foreign language

• la crème 'cream' is an exception (but see 1.2.4).

-age

Nouns ending in -age are usually masculine, but there are some notable exceptions:

le courage	courage
un garage	a garage
un message	a message
un stage	a work placement
un voyage	a journey

• Exceptions: une cage a cage, une image a picture, une page a page, une plage a beach, la rage rabies.

Other common exceptions:

un grade	a rank
un stade	a stadium
un groupe	a group
le monde	the world
le capitaine	the captain
le domaine	the area
le silence	silence
un musée	a museum
un lycée	a (sixth-form) college
un trophée	a trophy
un génie	a genius
un incendie	a fire
un cimetière	a cemetery
le derrière	the backside
un magazine	a magazine
le platine	platinum
un pare-brise	a windscreen
un intervalle	an interval
le rebelle	the rebel
le chèvrefeuille	honeysuckle
un chêne	an oak tree
un hêtre	a beech tree
un gorille	a gorilla
un portefeuille	a wallet
un carosse	a carriage
un squelette	a skeleton
un renne	a reindeer
le mercure	mercury
le murmure	a murmur
un gramme	a gram
un kilogramme	a kilogram
un mètre	a metre
un kilomètre	a kilometre
un litre	a litre
un parapluie	an umbrella

NB: Most words with the prefix para- are masculine: un parachute 'a parachute', un paratonnerre 'a lightning conductor', le parapente 'paragliding', un paravent 'wind-shield, screen'.

Other Chapters

Table of Contents

Nouns

• Types
• Gender
• Plural

---

Determiners

• Articles
• Typical use of the definite article
• Typical use of the indefinite article
• The partitive article: du, de l', de la, des
• Use of indefinite and partitive articles after the negative forms ne... pas, ne... jamais, ne... plus, ne... guère
• Omission of the article
• Demonstrative determiners
• Possessive determiners

---

Personal and impersonal pronouns

• Subject pronouns
• Object pronouns
• Stressed pronouns
• Demonstrative pronouns
• Possessive pronouns

---

Adjectives

• Adjectives modifying the noun
• Adjectives which follow verbs or verbal expressions
• Adjectives with complements
• Indefinite and negative noun phrases with adjective complements
• Adjectives used as nouns
• Adjectives used as adverbs
• Masculine and feminine forms of adjectives
• Plural forms of adjectives
• Adjective agreement with nouns
• Invariable adjectives
• Compound adjectives
• Comparative and superlative forms of adjectives
• Subjunctive versus indicative in clauses dependent on a superlative adjective
• Absolute use of the superlative

---

Adverbs

• Function of adverbs
• Formation of adverbs with the ending -ment
• Adjectives used as adverbs without addition of -ment
• Phrases used as adverbs
• English and French adverb formation
• Types of adverbs
• Location of adverbs

---

Numbers, measurements, time and quantifiers

• Cardinal numbers
• Ordinal numbers
• Fractions
• Some differences in the use of cardinal and ordinal numbers in French and English
• Measurements and comparisons
• Dates, days, years
• Clock time
• Money
• Quantifiers

---

Verb forms

• Conjugations
• Easy ways of generating some parts of the paradigms
• Changes in the stem form of some -er conjugation verbs
• Verbs whose stems end in c- or g-
• Verb paradigms

---

Verb constructions

• Relations between verbs and their complements
• Intransitive constructions
• Directly transitive verbs
• Indirectly transitive verbs
• Ditransitive verbs
• The passive
• Pronominal verbs
• Impersonal verbs
• Verbs which take noun + adjective or noun + noun complements

---

Verb and participle agreement

• Subject-verb agreement
• Agreement of the past participle with the subject of être
• Agreement of the past participle of verbs conjugated with avoir with a preceding direct object
• Agreement of the past participle of pronominal verbs in compound tenses

---

Tense

• The present
• The past
• The future
• Other tenses indicating the time at which events occur relative to other events
• Combining tenses
• Tenses in direct and reported descriptions of events
• Tenses with si

---

The subjunctive, modal verbs, exclamatives and imperatives

• The attitude of the subject to events: the subjunctive
• The use of devoir, pouvoir, savoir, falloir
• The French equivalents of the English modal verbs: 'would', 'should', 'could', 'may', 'might', 'ought to', and 'must'
• Exclamatives
• Imperatives

---

The infinitive

• Introduction: what are infinitives?
• Infinitives as complements to other verbs
• Verbs which take infinitive complements without a linking preposition
• Verbs which take infinitive complements preceded by the preposition à
• Verbs which take an infinitive complement preceded by de
• Omission of objects before infinitives
• Infinitives as complements to adjectives
• Infinitives as complements to nouns
• Infinitives in subordinate clauses
• Infinitives as polite commands
• Quick-reference index to verbs taking infinitive complements

---

Prepositions

• Introduction
• Prepositions listed alphabetically from à to vers
• French translations for common English prepositions

---

Question formation

• Introduction
• Yes/no questions
• Information questions
• Order of object pronouns in questions involving inversion
• Order of negative particles in questions involving inversion
• Use of question words and phrases: qui?, que?, quoi?, quel?, de qui?, avec combien de? etc.
• Indirect questions

---

Relative clauses

• Introduction
• Use of relative qui
• Use of relative que
• Preposition plus qui
• Use of lequel in relative clauses
• Use of dont, de qui, duquel/de laquelle/desquels/desquelles
• The use of où as a relative pronoun
• Use of relative quoi
• Free relative clauses and the use of ce qui, ce que, ce dont, ce à quoi, ce sur quoi, etc.
• Translating 'whoever', 'whatever', 'wherever', 'whenever', 'however'
• Indicative and subjunctive in relative clauses

---

Negation

• Introduction
• Location of sentence negators
• Order of negators in multiple negation
• Omission of ne in sentence negation
• Order of negative elements in questions and imperatives
• ne... pas
• ne... que
• ne... aucun(e), ne... nul(le)
• ne... jamais
• ne... plus
• ne... guère
• ne... rien
• ne... personne
• ne... ni... ni
• sans used with other negators
• ne used alone

---

Conjunctions and other linking constructions

• Introduction
• Coordinating conjunctions
• Subordinating conjunctions
• Conjunctions sometimes confused by English speakers
• Repeated subordinating conjunctions
• Subordinating conjunctions used with infinitive clauses
• après avoir/ être + past participle linking an infinitive clause to a main clause
• Past participle phrases used as linkers
• Present participles and gerunds