French · Rung 4 of 26

Articles and gender

Every French noun takes an article, almost without exception: you do not say “j'aime musique” but j'aime la musique. Gender rarely lines up with what you would guess, and that is the commonest error: la voiture is feminine, le livre masculine, and there is no way to tell from the meaning. Learn the noun with its article stuck to it, as one word. Before a vowel or a mute h, le and la elide: l'homme, l'eau. In the plural it all simplifies: les for the definite and des for the indefinite, with no gender.

Where this sits

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What isn't pronounced
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Adjectives: gender, number and position, Prepositions and contractions

Exercises from this rung

Generated by the app, from easiest to hardest

  1. ___ garçon

    • les garçon
    • un garçon
    • la garçon
    • le garçon

    Why “garçon” is masculine: le / un. Gender cannot be deduced from the meaning, so learn the noun with its article stuck to it.

    easier

  2. ___ journal

    • un journal
    • une journal
    • le journal
    • la journal

    Why “journal” is masculine: le / un. Gender cannot be deduced from the meaning, so learn the noun with its article stuck to it.

    in between

  3. ___ chiens

    • les chiens
    • la chiens
    • le chiens
    • des chiens

    Why In the plural the definite article is always “les” and the indefinite “des”, with no gender: les chiens, des chiens. And the plural s is not pronounced: the plural is heard only in the article.

    harder