Marissa Macy
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How to Master French Noun Gender: Common Patterns for Masculine and Feminine Words
Masculin ou féminin ?
Oh, the woes this question has brought you and every other French learner out there.
Having a conversation? You need gender agreements. Brushing up on vocab? Better know the nouns’ genders.
In fact, any way you might want to immerse yourself in French, then you’ll have to know your le from your la (definite articles) and your une from your un (indefinite articles).
Contents
- When You’ll Use French Gender
- How to Conquer French Gender Rules in a Nutshell
- Fun Tools for French Gender Practice
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
When You’ll Use French Gender
First things first, when you learn a French word, you’ll see it paired with either its definite or indefinite article.
The indefinite articles or “a/an” in English:
un
(masculine)
une
(feminine)
des
(plural)
The definite articles or “the” in English:
le
(masculine)
la
(feminine)
les
(plural)
The partitive articles or “some” in English:
du
(masculine)
de la
(feminine)
des
(plural)
In addition, you’ll need to know the gender in order to determine which pronoun to use. For example, when choosing personal pronouns Il (He) or Elle (She).
Then there are the adjectives, which have different spellings or pronunciations depending on the gender of the noun to which you’re applying them. And there are the gender agreements found in the perfect tense and all of its grammatically derivative compound tenses.
Therefore, the best way to keep genders straight is to always learn new words with their genders.
How to Conquer French Gender Rules in a Nutshell
Most French teachers and fellow French speakers will tell you that there’s no rhyme or reason to whether a noun is masculine or feminine. While there’s some truth to this, largely due to the long-term evolution of the French language, there are some rules (and exceptions) to get most nouns on lock.
Remember that your instincts about a word may not always be correct, for example, le féminisme (feminism) is masculine and la masculinité (masculinity) is feminine.
Look at the Ending
This may be the most effective way to determine the gender of a noun when you’re stumped.
Here’s a list of common endings for both masculine and feminine nouns, but keep in mind that these rules only apply around 90% of the time.
Masculine noun endings
– age
– ment
– il
, – ail
, – eil
, – euil
– é
– eau
, -eu
– er
– oir
– isme
– ing
– ard
– am
, – um
, – em
– it
, – est
– an
, – and
, – ant
, – ent
, – in
, – int
, – om
, – ond
, – ont
– ème
, – ège
Most nouns that end with a consonant will be masculine.
Feminine noun endings
– tion
, – sion
and – son
– ure
– ude
, – ade
– ée
– té
– ière
– euse
– ance
, – ence
-consonant + – ie
Most combinations of vowel + consonant + –e will be feminine, such as: -ine, -elle, -esse, -ette, etc.
Certain Categories of Nouns Show Gender
Certain categories of nouns tend to be masculine or feminine. Also, the gender of the generic noun category will also usually match the gender of the sub-categories as well.
For example, since la mer (the sea) is feminine, names of specific seas, such as la Méditerranée (the Mediterranean) are feminine as well.
You’ll see many more examples of how this works in our list below.
Masculine Noun Categories
- Months
Un mois (a month)
Le décembre (December)
- Planes (e.g. names of planes)
Un avion (a plane)
Le Concorde (the Concorde)
- Cheeses
Le fromage (cheese)
Le Roquefort (Roquefort)
- Languages
Le français (French)
Exception! Une langue (a language) is feminine.
- Seasons
Le printemps (spring)
Cet hiver (this winter)
Exception! Une saison (a season) is feminine.
Feminine Noun Categories
- Scientific fields
La science (science)
La physique (physics)
- Fruits
Une banane (A banana)
Exception! Un fruit (a fruit) is masculine.
Places
If a city or a place name does not end in -e, then it’s most likely masculine. If a city or place name ends in -e, then it’s generally feminine.
This is a pretty standard rule with only a handful of exceptions, noted below:
le Mexique
(Mexico)
le Bélize
(Belize)
le Cambodge
(Cambodia)
le Mozambique
(Mozambique)
le Zaïre
(Zaire)
le Zimbabwe
(Zimbabwe)
Derivative Nouns
Nouns that are derived from a verb — referring to something or someone carrying out that verb’s action — typically use the ending -eur, and will be masculine.
Examples:
l’aspirateur (the vacuum), l’ordinateur (the computer).
Nouns that are derived from adjectives and end with –eur are feminine.
Examples:
la rougeur (the redness), la largeur (the width), la pâleur (the paleness)
Nouns That Go Both Ways
Animals
When talking about certain animals in French, you refer to the male version of the species with a masculine noun and the female of the species with a feminine noun.
Examples:
un étalon (a stallion), un cerf (a stag), une chatte (female cat), un chat (a male cat), etc.
Although, some nouns for animals refer to both genders.
Examples:
la souris (the mouse), le cheval (the horse).
Job Titles
Most job titles have both a masculine and feminine form. Many of them started out as exclusively masculine words but, as the years went on and women began to work a diverse array of jobs, more and more of these job titles took on feminine forms.
Here are some examples of the masculine and feminine forms:
un acteur , une actrice (actor)
un boulanger , une boulangère (baker)
un infirmier , une infirmière (nurse)
un caissier , une caissière (cashier)
un avocat , une avocate (lawyer)
un pharmacien , une pharmacienne (pharmacist)
un étudiant , une étudiante (student)
un serveur , une serveuse (waiter)
un ingénieur , une ingénieure (an engineer)
un peintre , une peintre (a painter)
Masculine Career Names
- Un professeur (a teacher) has no widely accepted feminine form.
- While une chef (a chef) is commonly accepted in Switzerland and Francophone Quebec, only un chef is generally used in France.
- Un écrivain (a writer) is usually only employed in the masculine.
Adjective Agreements
Gender agreements are important in both conversation and writing. The gender of a noun can change the adjectives applied to it and some verb tenses, not to mention it’ll determine which pronouns to use.
Adjectives in French don’t just conform to the gender, but also the quantity. Most adjectives have four forms: masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural and feminine plural.
General Guidelines for Adjective Gender
This is the most common way adjectives are modified for gender and quantity.
Masculine Singular: amusant (fun), bleu (blue), vert (green), content (happy)
Feminine Singular: amusante, bleue, verte, contente
Masculine Plural: amusants, bleus, verts, contents
Feminine Plural: amusantes, bleues, vertes, contentes
You simply add either an –e, -s, or –es.
Other Adjective Rules:
If the masculine form of an adjective ends in an unaccented –e, then the feminine form is the same and only an -s is needed for plural forms. Example: triste (sad), triste, tristes, tristes.
If the masculine form of an adjective ends in –l or –n, then you make it feminine by doubling the consonant. Example: bon (good), bonne, bons, bonnes.
If the masculine form of an adjective ends in -er or –et, then you’ll add an accent for the feminine. Example: cher (expensive), chère, chers, chères
Notable exceptions:
If it ends in -c, then –che is the feminine ending. Example: blanc (white), blanche, blancs, blanches.
If it ends in -eux, then –euse is the feminine ending. Example: amoureux (romantic), amoureuse, amoureux, amoureuses.
If it ends in –f, then -ve is the feminine ending. Example: actif (active), active, actifs, actives.
If it ends in -eur, then –euse is usually the feminine. Example: menteur (lying), menteuse, menteurs, menteuses.
So irregular they don’t have a category:
These have no rhyme or reason, but you’ll find yourself using them often. These are listed in the order of: masculine, masculine before a vowel, feminine, masculine plural, and feminine plural.
Beautiful: beau, bel, belle, beaux, belles
Crazy: fou, fol, folle, fous, folles
New: nouveau, nouvel, nouvelle, nouveaux, nouvelles
Old: vieux, vieil, vieille, vieux, vieilles
Verb Agreements
Luckily this part is pretty straightforward, no weird irregular endings for the feminine form.
Be aware that with some verb tenses, you’ll need to be certain about what gender your noun is in order to correctly conjugate.
In the perfect tense and other compound tenses (such as the past perfect and the past conditional) when you use être as your helping verb, you’ll need to make an agreement with your subject. Usually this is straightforward because the subject is either je, tu, il, elle, nous, vous, ils, or elles. If a noun is your subject, make sure you’re certain of its gender so you can make the proper agreements.
Here’s an example using the past tense of aller (to go):
Je suis allé(e).
Tu es allé(e).
Il est allé.
Elle est allé.
Nous sommes allé(e)s.
Vous êtes allé(e)(s)
Ils sont allés.
Elles sont allées.
The endings stay the same for each verb, and the rules are the same if the subject is say, une lampe, and not a personal pronoun. Just don’t forget to agree.
In addition, when you have a direct object in the past tense and are using the helping verb avoir, then you’ll have to make the verb agree with the direct object. It’s also important to know the gender in these cases. Here’s an example:
A: Est-ce que vous avez fait la tarte?
(Did you make the pie?)
B: Oui, je l’ai faite.
(Yes, I made it.)
Since the direct object in this sentence was feminine, you have to agree the verb. The endings are the same as when you use the helping verb être.
Fun Tools for French Gender Practice
As you dive into the words and patterns below, you’ll want to have some go-to tools to apply what you’re learning. Here are some helpful places to practice French noun gender:
- Reading a book is one of the best ways to learn vocabulary and, in turn, subconsciously learn your he’s from your she’s. You can even get away with reading comic books or magazines.
- Watching films or using audio resources can help increase your overall fluency if you’re an intermediate learner who has developed an ear for subtleties in the French language
- FluentU is a program that learners of any level can use to see French gender rules being applied “in the wild” in native French speech. That’s because FluentU has many authentic French videos like movie and TV show clips, news segments, interviews, vlogs and more.
And since each video has interactive subtitles, you can check the meaning of any word with a click. This means you can easily see the gender of a word, its definition in the context it’s being used in, example sentences and videos and an option to save it as a flashcard for review.
Save words you struggle with into a flashcard deck and practice them with the personalized quizzes on FluentU. Or download the iOS or Android app for the inclusion of speaking questions, which let you practice pronunciation, as well.
- This article gives you ideas for games, both by yourself or with others, to reinforce nouns and gender in your mind.
- This Sporcle quiz gives you just a word ending, and you type in “m” or”f,” indicating which gender most regularly characterizes that noun. Talk in French also has a simple 10-question quiz that asks you to identify the gender of a given French noun.
(Note that these quizzes do include some endings/words not covered in this article).
- Turn your house into a French gender goldmine with Vocabulary Stickers. These durable (but easy-to-remove) stickers let you label objects all around your home with their French name. It’s another fun method to learn French words organically. And best of all, each label is color-coded for gender, adding a visual element for even easier memorization.
- This website lets you answer questions about different subjects (including French), and with every question you get right, ten grains of rice are donated to people in need. A lot of the questions are vocabulary questions, including the gender of the noun in the question.
As you delve into the fun world of the past tense, pronouns and compound tenses, you’ll find the gender of your nouns becoming more and more important. There may seem to be no sense to it—and often there isn’t—but it’s something we French speakers must try to conquer, both beginners and fluent speakers alike!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
