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. However, it is not necessary to learn all genders by heart as there are certain models that can be used to predict the genre with varying degrees of accuracy. Be careful to remember that there are always exceptions to these models.

In today's lesson, we will study noun genders signalled by the final letters.

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

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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

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Personal and impersonal pronouns

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Prepositions

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

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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

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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

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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

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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