One important thing to understand when learning French is the notion of masculine and feminine. In the French language, every thing is either masculine or feminine. I mean, every item has a gender. In English, you talk about the word table. A table is not female nor male. Well, in English perhaps, but in French a table is a female, or I’d rather say a feminine word.

Explications grammaticales de base pour connaitre le genre des noms – Basic grammatical explanations to know the gender of French nouns

L’importance d’apprendre l’article avec le nom – The importance of learning the article with the noun

Most of the time, when a noun is pronounced, it will come with an article like le or la. for instance. In the case of the word table, you can guess that it is feminine with the article une or la coming before the word table. If a noun is masculine, we use the article un, or any other article in the masculine version, in front of the noun. We say for example un téléphone (a phone). It is quite important to know the gender of French nouns because all the words associated with the nouns will adapt to the gender. The article will be feminine or masculine according to the gender of the noun.

Les adjectifs aussi ont une version masculine et féminine – Adjectives also have masculine and feminine versions

The adjectives related to the nouns also change accordingly to the gender of the French nouns.

As you can see, the adjective small has a masculine and a feminine versions (petit and petite). The pronunciation of the adjective in that case, and quite often, is different. If you want to speak correct French, then you have to know if a noun is masculine or feminine.

Ce que nous avons appris jusqu’à présent – What we have learnt so far

• a French noun is either masculine or feminine
• you can figure out the gender of French nouns by looking at the article before the noun (most of the time)

Have a look at the lesson about the definite and indefinite articles

• the words related to the nouns become feminine or masculine, according to the gender of the nouns
• not only the spelling of some words can change depending if they are masculine or feminine but the pronunciation can be different as well (petit ≠ petite , un ≠ une)

Existe-t-il un moyen de connaître le genre des noms français ? – Is there a way to know the gender of French nouns?

Apprend l’article avec le nom – Learn the article with the noun

Sorry, there is no magic trick to know the gender of French nouns. 😔 My best advice is to learn every new noun with the article coming before the noun. So, if you learn the word ordinateur in French, which means computer, it is important to learn how to say in French a computer. a computer is a male in French 😛, we say un ordinateur.

Masculine articles are un (a) or le (the). Feminine articles are une (a) or la (the).

Des catégories de noms selon les lettres finales – Noun categories based on the final letters

However, there is a list of rules, categorising nouns depending on the ending of the words. It can help to know these categories even though this is not an exact science, meaning it can help you to guess but for almost every category, there are exceptions. At least if you have no clue about the gender of French nouns, it will give you a lead 😉.

⚠️ If a noun ends with the letter “e“, it doesn’t mean it is feminine. ⚠️

Terminaisons qui aident à deviner que le genre est masculin – Endings that help you guess that the gender of French nouns is masculine

These noun endings should help you guess the gender of French nouns when they are masculine.

Les noms qui terminent en -age – Nouns ending in -age

Les noms qui terminent en -isme – Nouns ending in -isme

Les noms qui terminent en -ment – Nouns ending is -ment

Les noms qui terminent en -eau – Nouns ending in -eau

Les noms qui terminent en -phone – Nouns ending in -phone

Les noms qui terminent en -scope – Nouns ending in -scope

Terminaisons qui aident à deviner que le genre est féminin – Endings that help you guess that the gender of French nouns is feminine

After watching this video, thanks to Paul Taylor, you should remember that the word “eau” (water) in French is feminine 😂

These noun endings should help you guess the gender of French nouns when they are feminine.

Les noms qui terminent en -té – Nouns ending in -té

Les noms qui terminent en -tion – Nouns ending in -tion

Les noms qui terminent en -ade – Nouns ending in -ade

Les noms qui terminent en -ie – Nouns ending in -ie

Les noms qui terminent en -ure – Nouns ending in -ure

Les noms qui terminent en -ance – Nouns ending in -ance

Les noms qui terminent en -ence – Nouns ending in -ence

Les noms qui terminent en -sion – Nouns ending in -sion

Les noms qui terminent en -ette – Nouns ending in -ette

Les noms qui terminent en -ude – Nouns ending in -ude

Les noms qui terminent en -ère / -erre – Nouns ending in –ère / -erre

Les noms qui terminent en -elle – Nouns ending in –elle

Les noms qui terminent en -esse – Nouns ending in –esse

Les noms qui terminent en -oie / -oix – Nouns ending in -oie / -oix

Les noms qui terminent en -ille – Nouns ending in –ille

Les noms qui terminent en –ue – Nouns ending in -ue