Language/French/Grammar/Grammatical-and-real-gender

Grammatical and real gender

With a handful of nouns, the real gender (sex) of the person referred to may determine the choice of third person pronouns il/ils or elle/elles. For example, victime, recrue, sentinelle are grammatically feminine nouns, but not all 'victims', 'recruits' or 'sentries' are necessarily female: mannequin, recteur, conseiller municipal are grammatically masculine nouns, but not all 'models', 'university Vice-Chancellors' or 'town councillors' are necessarily male. In such cases the real gender of the person referred to normally determines the choice of il/ils or elle/elles:

• Nous avons fait une nouvelle recrue. Il va se joindre à nous ce soir

We have gained a new recruit. He will pin us this evening

• C'est une femme qui a été nommée recteur de l'université. Elle n'a que 42 ans

A woman has been appointed as Vice-Chancellor of the university. She is only 42

Related Lessons

• Use of an année, jour journée, matin matinée, soir soirée
• Pronominal verbs used reciprocally
• Repetition of the definite article
• How to use « il y a » in French
• Verb agreement with fractions
• Simple arithmetic (le calcul)
• Measurements and comparisons in French — Numeral nouns and approximations
• Proper Nouns
• Conjugation group 3 — verbs with infinitives which end in —re
• Nouns that are only masculine or only feminine But may refer to both men and women
• Homophones
• Location of adverbs modifying verb phrases
• Direct object quantifiers and « en »
• Plural of words in Al
• Common quantifiers