What is the word she in french

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When it comes to using French pronouns, you find them quite challenging, don’t you?

Do you have a feeling that you will never learn how to use them?

Don’t despair, because most French learners feel that way.

Lucky for you, in this article we’re going to talk about French pronouns, both direct and indirect. We will also show you the difference between them which will help you to put that knowledge to practice.

Let’s dive in.

What are Pronouns?

To effectively understand how pronouns work in French, you need to understand what they are first and where they are placed in a sentence.

A pronoun is a word that replaces a noun. It can function as a noun phrase by referring to other participants or someone or something mentioned in the discussion.

For example, John met Susan and he shook hands with her. Words he and her are pronouns.

English vs. French pronouns

Pronouns in French are similar to the English ones.

However, don’t confuse these two by simply translating from one language to another.

In English, in many cases, it’s acceptable to use both direct and indirect objects. 

In French, there’s a clear difference between them. In the following lines, you will be able to read our detailed explanations about direct and indirect French object pronouns.

Personal Subject Pronouns

Personal pronouns represent a grammatical person in a sentence. They replace who or what in the sentence.

In the following lines, you’ll see the personal pronouns in French:

Singular

Je/ J’- I 

Please note that the apostrophe after the letter ‘J’ is used when the word begins with a vowel.

Tu- You ( informal)

Il- He or It 

Elle- She

Plural

Nous- We

Vous- You (plural)

ls- They (replaces masculine entities)

Elles- They (replaces feminine entities)

The ‘Vous’ pronoun is used in several cases: 

• Meaning ‘you’ in singular, informal
• Meaning ‘you’ in the plural, informal
• Meaning ‘you’ formally for both singular and plural

The ‘IT’ Pronoun in French

Those who are already learning French are familiar with the fact there’s no neutral gender.

The French language has only masculine and feminine genders, so everything is either ‘he’ or ‘she’; animals, flowers, people, objects, etc.

French Direct Object Pronouns

French direct object pronoun, or in French, ‘Complement d’object direct,’ appears in the sentence with a
transitive verb. Direct objects can often be replaced by pronouns.

Below, you can find direct object pronouns in French:

Singular

Me (M’)- me

Te (T’) — You (informal)

Le ( L’)- He or It

La- She

Plural

Nous- Us

Vous- You

Les- Them

Note: Like with personal pronouns, the ‘Vous’ pronoun is used both formally and informally.

How to identify the direct object?

To figure out which pronoun you have to use, you have to determine whether you need a direct or indirect object.

There are three main ways that can help you identify whether you need direct or indirect object:

• Article défini -Definite article
• Adjectif démonstratif- Demonstrative adjective
• Adjectif possessif- Possessive adjective

If the object is followed by one of these, then we are talking about the direct object.

Indirect Object Pronoun in French

Complément d’objet indirect or French indirect object pronoun is affected by the transitive verb in the sentence.

These pronouns are a bit different from the previous ones:

Singular

Me- Me

Te- You (informal)

Lui- Him or Her

Le/ La- It

Vous- You (formal)

Plural

Nous- Us

Vous- You (both formal and informal)

Leur- Their

Understanding the difference between Direct and Indirect Pronouns

To understand what pronoun to use, you need to understand the grammatical value of the word.

The key to understanding is asking grammatical questions.

Have in mind that it can be a bit confusing, especially for English speakers since they use direct objects where French would use indirect and vice versa. So, pay attention and ask the question in French, not in English.

For direct object, questions are:

Subject+ verb+ qui/quoi?

For indirect, the question is:

Subject+ verb+ á qui?

To completely understand what we are talking about, let’s take a glimpse at the following example: 

Marie donne les fleurs à Martinique. 

In this example, ‘les fleurs’ represent an object. So, to find out the direct object,  we ask a question ‘Subject+ verb+ qui/quoi?’ More precisely, it sounds like this: ‘Marie donne quoi?’

Marie donne les fleurs. So, ‘les’ fleurs’ is the direct object.

To replace the object with a direct pronoun, ‘les fleurs’ is replaced with ‘les.’

Marie les donne á  Martinique.

To figure out the indirect object, we also have to ask a question, which is ‘Subject+ verb+ á qui?’

Marie donne á qui? The answer is Marie donne á  Martinique. So, ‘á  Martinique’ is an indirect object.

When we want to use pronouns, we are going to replace the indirect object, ‘á  Martinique,’ with the suitable pronoun, which is ‘lui.’ So, the sentence sounds like this:

Marie lui donne les fleurs.

It’s essential to remember that objects, both direct and indirect, go right before the conjugated verb, and as for the
negative sentences, it goes right before ‘ne.’ The exceptions are instructions or orders.

The Preposition Is The Key

The thing that makes this quite challenging for French learners is that direct and indirect objects are so similar that they have almost the same value. Both of them refer to ‘who’ the subject does some action with.

The following two shortcuts can help you determine whether you need a direct or indirect object.

So, the key is in the preposition:

Direct object= Subject+ verb+ someone or something

Example: Je regarde Martinique.- Je le regarde.

Indirect object= Subject+ verb+ á someone

Example: Je donne (la fleur) á Martinique.- Je lui donne (la fleur).

Verbs used with Indirect Object

There are so many verbs that are used with a direct object, and only a few that go with the indirect ones.

To facilitate in every way possible, we’ve listed some of the most common verbs that are mainly used with indirect object:

• acheter à – to by from

• demander à – to ask from

• dire à – to say to, tell

• donner à – to give to 

• écrire à – to write to

•  emprunter à – to borrow from

• envoyer à – to send to

• offrir à – to give (as a present) to

• parler à – to speak to, talk to

• prêter à – to lend to

• raconter à – to tell to

• rendre à – to give back to

• répondre à – to answer to

• souhaiter à – to wish to

• sourire à – to smile to

• téléphoner à – to phone / call 

• vendre à – to sell to

French pronoun order

There are many cases when you have to use more than one pronoun.

There is an order for that, too. In the following lines, find the order pronoun that is used.

• Me, Te, Nous, Vous
• Le, La, Les
• Lui, Leur

The ideal example of using several pronouns in one sentence would be ‘Je le lui ai donné.’ (I gave it to him.)

Example from
Carleton.edu

Be careful about these common mistakes

No matter if you are an English native speaker or you are learning English, we suggest not to use your English knowledge. When it comes to direct or indirect pronouns, it can’t be helpful.

English can misguide you. In most cases in English, people aren’t aware if there is a direct or indirect object since it’s not so important, and it’s acceptable to use both of them in most situations.

In French, the situation is completely different. French is much more strict about that. To make it a bit more clear, let’s take a glimpse at the following example:

I give her flowers every week.

The ‘her’ pronoun is ‘la’ in French. If we translate from English to French, we get ‘Je la donne les fleurs chaque semaine.’ And this isn’t correct. Why? The answer is simple: when translating from English to French, many people forget about the ‘to’ that is hidden in ‘her.’ Whether you use ‘to her’ or ‘her’ in English, you won’t make a mistake. In French, however, you have more pronouns to think about; the direct ones, ‘le,’ ‘la’ and ‘les,’ and indirect ones, ‘lui,’ or ‘leur.’

How can you avoid this mistake?

Think in French.

Write the sentence in French, and replace it with some longer phrase. For example:

Je donne les fleurs ma soeur chaque semaine.

Making the sentence longer by adding phrases can show you which object and pronoun have to be used.

Conclusion

There are many types of pronouns such as adverbial, personal, direct, indirect, relative, reflexive, indefinite, impersonal, etc.

As you are already familiar, direct and indirect are the most challenging ones. But constant practice can help you master them and your conversation with natives will flow smoothly. 

Don’t lose motivation. To be motivated to go forward, perhaps these
motivational language quotes can help you stick to your path.

One last tip. Don’t hesitate to ask for help anytime you need it.
French tutors on Justlearn will be more than glad to help you, not only with direct or indirect object pronouns but with many other phrases, expressions, and grammar catches, too.

In this French lesson, you’ll learn the basic French pronouns. In the French language, pronouns like «I» and «she» are already familiar around the world, but others like «us» or «them» are unknown. Learn all of the following words in French»

Je = I
Tu = you (use this for people you know, your own age or younger)
Vous = you (plural or for stranger or people older than you)
Il = he
Elle = she
On = one/we
Nous = us
Ils (them, mas.)
Elles (them, fem)

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French has two genders, feminine and masculine. These are used not only for people, but for objects, such as tables, chairs, pens, and paper, as well as more abstract ideas, such as honesty, exuberance, and courage. Any noun will have a gender and the adjectives and determiners that modify these nouns will have to agree with them, meaning that adjectives and determiners also have gender.

This may seem like a lot for language learners who speak languages that don’t use gender for things, or even for referring to people in the third person. English, for example, does not attribute gender to tables and chairs, but does use the personal pronouns “she” and “he” to refer to people.

French grammar behaves the way it does because it evolved from Latin, which also attributes gender to objects and ideas as well as people. There is, in fact, a third gender in Latin, which is neuter, so we can be glad to only have to learn two genders in French!

Even if you are familiar with other Romance languages which, having also developed from Latin, do use gender for things, you might find that remembering the gender of French words is a bit more difficult, since the endings don’t always give enough clues.

Looking at the Italian language, we find a high percentage of feminine words ending in “a” when singular and “e” when plural, and a high percentage of masculine words ending in “o” when singular and “i” when plural: la ragazza, le ragazze; la donna, le donne; la farfalla, le farfalle and il bambino, i bambini; l’uomo, gli uomini; l’uccello, gli uccelli are some examples.

There are other cases that are not uncommon, such as masculine singular words ending in “e” (as with il mare), but there is more consistency in the endings of gender in Italian than in French; la chaise, la fin, la main, la radio, la clef (clé in its modern spelling), l’idée, l’atmosphère, and la tribu are all feminine while le tableau, le début, le pied, l’écran, l’amour, le café, le climat, and le sentiment are all masculine (luckily the plural form of the definite articles used for all of these words is “les”).

What kinds of patterns can we draw out of this variety of endings to help us remember which words are feminine and which words are masculine?

Tips to Remember the Gender of French Words

Here are some things to remember when approaching gender in French:

1. When referring to people, the words will take on the gender of the person they refer to, e.g., la fille, la reine, la cousine, la sœur; le garçon, le roi, le cousin, le frère (compare this to the German word das Mädchen, a neuter word for “girl”).

2. There is a large group of nouns and adjectives whose feminine and masculine forms are distinguished by the presence or absence of a final “e”, e.g., cousine as opposed to cousin, as we see above, or amie as opposed to ami, and with adjectives that also reflect this pattern, une grande amie, un grand ami.

3. Sometimes the final consonants of a masculine word are doubled before the “e” is added to form the feminine version, resulting in a denasalized vowel sound preceding a final consonant sound: un plat italien, une recette italienne.

4. Nationalities tend to follow the patterns we’ve just described:

allemand → allemande

australien → australienne

brésilien → brésilienne

chinois → chinoise

coréen → coréenne

espagnol → espagnole

français → française

haïtien → haïtienne

italien → italienne

marocain → marocaine

sénégalais → sénégalaise

1. There are feminine words with endings that incorporate more changes from the masculine form before the addition of the final e. Here are some common examples:

eux → euse	heureux → heureuse
oux → ouse	époux → épouse
eur → euse	chanteur → chanteuse
teur → trice	acteur → actrice
deur → drice	ambassadeur → ambassadrice
er → ère	cher → chère
f → ve	neuf → neuve

Knowing these endings will help when you come across new words:

Scenario #1: You are pleased with the general feel of a restaurant you have just walked into and remark that “L’atmosphère du restaurant est … ?” (Since we recognize the “ère” ending as feminine, we can describe the atmosphere of the restaurant as “bonne”, “vivante”, “chaleureuse” – all adjectives with feminine endings we recognize.

Scenario #2: Dessert at the restaurant includes a fruit plate and you comment that “L’abricot est … ?” (We recognize a vowel + t ending which looks like a masculine form of the combinations we have seen above, so good choices for describing the apricot in this phrase would be the masculine words “délicieux”, “bon”, or “cher”.)

There are, however, feminine words that might look masculine – why is this? Perhaps because they end with consonants in their written form that signal nasalized vowel sounds, as with the word “maison”. Or perhaps because there is an -e at the end of the word, as with the word “courage”.

The -age ending is actually a masculine ending in French. Here are some endings that tend to be of a specific gender:

Feminine	Masculine
-aille	-age
-ance	-ail
-ée	-é
-eille	-eau*
-ouille	-is
-onde	-isme
-une	-ment
-té	-oir
-tion	-ois
-tude	-ueil

• Remember that “eau” by itself is feminine. Think of the “eau gazeuse” labels you see on sparkling water.

• There are always exceptions in French, as there are in any language, so the trick is to remember patterns that are 80 or 90% accurate, in addition to memorizing the gender of words.

What helps us memorize French grammar rules like gender? Memorizing units of language places words in context and gives models for language, so instead of memorizing lists of specific words, try memorizing words along with other words that indicate gender such as:

1. Articles – indefinite singular articles work best, as they don’t contract with words beginning with vowels that may follow them – remembering “une abeille” will indicate gender more than “l’abeille”, since the l’ will work the same for feminine and masculine nouns.

2. Adjectives – remember nouns along with any adjective that modifies them, such as “eau gazeuse” from above, or “grand amour” – these are common phrases that people tend to use often and the repetition will reinforce initial efforts to memorize the word.

Another thing to remember is that loan words, words adopted from foreign languages with little to no modification, tend to be masculine, as with le bonzaï, le kébab, and even le yoga, a word that might appear feminine to learners who are already familiar with Italian and Spanish, languages that have many feminine words ending in the letter a. (Note that even in Italian and Spanish, the word “yoga” is masculine.)

It may help to think of the masculine gender in French as a more general way to designate things, whereas the feminine gender is more specific. Remember how many women together can be described as “amusantes” (the feminine plural form of the word for “fun” or “amusing”) whereas if men were to join them, they would, as a mixed crowd, be described as “amusants”? Using the masculine gender for loan words can also be seen as a way to refer to things that are part of a larger context, a context that includes more than what came out of French-speaking regions of the world.

Professions

The general terms used for professions are also traditionally masculine, although there has been some shifting to reflect the changing demographics of the workforce. Many occupations were traditionally held by men, which is reflected by the terms used to designate them, such as le professeur, l’ambassadeur, le médecin, le président, le soldat, and l’ingénieur.

We can still use the masculine forms to refer to both women and men, although now that many women hold these positions, the language is also changing to reflect this. Some words that are masculine lend themselves easily to feminine forms. Président is quite easy to “feminize” by simply adding an “e”, giving you Mme la Présidente. Others might have initially looked a bit strange, but are widely used now: la professeure, l’ingénieure, la factrice, la clerque.

Still others run into more complex issues, such as médecin, since adding an e, which would occur with similarly constructed words (capucin, capucine), would result in médecine, which refers to the domain of study rather than those individuals who practice medicine, e.g., “J’étudie la médecine pour devenir médecin”. In this case, you can either use the default masculine form or else use the feminine article before the masculine word, e.g., “Le médecin avec qui j’ai rendez-vous s’appelle Anne Lestringant” and “C’est la médecin de mon ami”. You can say femme médecin, but this might sound dated, as it could point to a woman doctor being an exceptional case rather than the norm.

Then there are the words for professions already ending in an “e muet” which, as with other nouns and adjectives ending in an “e muet” require no spelling change, so you would just change the article preceding it: le ministre, la ministre, idem, le ministre agréable, la ministre agréable.

Approaching the issue of gender in the French language may take a bit more effort than in other languages, but there are patterns that will guide you and knowing these patterns, along with repeating them often, is a way to familiarize yourself with the gender of words in French. Remember each gender as a category, and each noun, pronoun, adjective, and determiner as being part of either one or the other category. Also, while producing phrases that correctly use gender might take a fair amount of effort, keeping track of who says what and what happened to whom while listening to someone else might actually be easier, since all the gender agreement distinguishes the different elements of phrases and their characteristics and will not get lost, even in the longest and most complex sentences.

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French nouns are either masculine or feminine. Masculine nouns use the pronouns le and un while feminine nouns use la and une.

You may have heard that there is only one way to know the gender of a noun: to learn it by heart. Luckily this is one of many myths about the French language. You can actually know the gender of a French noun with more than 80% accuracy just by looking at its ending.

Let’s explore why genders exist in the French language, why they’re important, and how you can finally be sure whether a noun is masculine or feminine.

Why are there feminine and masculine nouns in French?

French isn’t the only language whose nouns have genders, and masculine and feminine aren’t the only possible genders for nouns in certain other languages. For example, in German, there’s a third gender: neuter. Many languages group nouns by whether they’re animate or inanimate. “Gender” is still the term used for this kind of classification, though. 

Interestingly, while we tend to think of English as a language without genders, that’s not completely true. Although English nouns may not be gendered, people and their corresponding pronouns are. Some other languages, like Turkish and Basque, don’t designate gender at all.

Why do some languages have gendered nouns, while others don’t?  No matter how much research you do or how many linguistics classes you take in college (trust me), you’ll never get a definitive answer to this.  From what we know about ancient texts and fragments of words, as well as by trying to reconstruct primitive languages based on modern-day language families, it seems that humans began by classifying nouns as living or not living. This may have had practical, as well as religious, purposes.

It’s thought that as time went on and religion became more organized and, in most places, less animistic, gender seemed like a good way to keep nouns organized. Why organizing nouns into general groups seemed necessary, and why certain nouns that would seem inherently masculine or feminine fall into the completely opposite category, is still uncertain.

So, yes, this does all mean that French noun genders are completely arbitrary in many cases. You can vent your frustration with a scream if you’d like, or maybe a French swear word. 

Why French genders matter

Regardless of their unclear and arbitrary origin, you can’t master French if you don’t master French genders. 

In French, gender has an influence on:

• The article you use before a noun
• Pronouns
• The ending of adjectives and verbs
• The meaning of certain words

You’ll discover how genders influence these elements in the last section of this article. But before you do, here’s how to easily know the gender of French words.

The 80/20 of French gender rules (or how to easily know whether a word is masculine or feminine)

There are many approaches to learning the genders of French nouns. But I’ve got news for you: Even native French speakers occasionally have trouble with it! In a 2008 study , native French speakers were asked to determine the gender of 93 words (which it turns out were all masculine). They could only agree on the gender of 17 of those! And they had even more trouble when it came to a list of feminine words.

Fortunately, there are methods that you can use to learn, memorize, and guess whether a French noun is masculine or feminine. Choose the right one for you and you’ll get them right a vast majority of the time. 

The method that’s been shown to be the most effective is….

Guess the gender based on the word’s ending

According to a study by McGill University (PDF), a noun’s ending indicates its gender in 80% of cases . Based on this study, here is a list of typically masculine and typically feminine noun endings.

Nouns with these endings were found to be of the same gender in more than 90% of cases.

Unless you really like memorizing lists, I don’t recommend you learn these endings by heart, since the process would be extremely boring. Instead, bookmark this page and regularly look at the list. Or print it out and hang it somewhere you often linger – for example, beside your bathroom mirror, by the sink where you wash the dishes, or even by your toilet.

After a while, you’ll see that you can intuitively guess the gender of a noun based on its ending.

French Together founder and genuinely nice guy Benjamin Houy has created a simplified list that’s easier to remember. You’ll find it below this first list.

Typically masculine noun endings (+90%)

• -an, -and, -ant, -ent, -in, -int, -om, -ond, -ont, -on (but not after s/c¸)
• -eau, -au, -aud, -aut, -o, -os, -ot
• -ai, -ais, -ait, -es, -et
• -ou, -out, -out, -oux
• -i, -il, -it, -is, -y
• -at, -as, -ois, -oit
• • -u, -us, -ut, -eu
• -er, -é after C (C=t)
• -age, -ege, – ème, -ome, -aume, -isme
• -as, -is, -os, -us, -ex
• -it, -est
• -al, -el, -il, -ol, -eul, -all
• -if, -ef
•  -ac, -ic, -oc, -uc
• -am, -um, -en
• -air, -er, -erf, -ert, -ar, -arc, -ars, -art, -our, -ours, -or, -ord, -ors, -ort, -ir, -oir, -eur
  (if animate)
• -ail, -eil, -euil, -ueil
• -ing

Typically feminine noun endings (+90%)

•  -aie, -oue, -eue, -ion, -te, – ée, -ie, -ue
• -asse, -ace, -esse, -ece, -aisse, -isse/-ice, -ousse, -ance, -anse, -ence, -once
•  -enne, -onne, -une, -ine, -aine, -eine, -erne
• -ande, -ende, -onde, -ade, -ude, -arde, -orde
• -euse, -ouse, -ase, -aise, -ese, -oise, -ise, -yse, -ose, -use
•  -ache, -iche, -eche, -oche, -uche, -ouche, -anche
• -ave, -eve, -ive
•  -iere, -ure, -eure
• -ette, -ete, – ête, -atte, -otte, -oute, -orte, -ante, -ente, -inte, -onte
• -alle, -elle, -ille, -olle
• -aille, -eille, -ouille
• -appe, -ampe, -ombe
• • -igue

A simplified  list of endings

The previous list has the advantage of being exhaustive, but as French Together reader Amosnliz notes in the comment section, you can learn with a simplified, shorter list.

While there is no precise data available, you can consider that you’ll be right 80% of the time if you use this simplified list.

Feminine noun endings

• The majority of words that end in -e or -ion.
• Except words ending in -age, -ege, -é, or -isme (these endings often indicate masculine words).

Masculine noun endings

Most words with other endings are masculine.

Other ways to learn and remember the gender of French words

When it comes to learning genders in French, I feel like I’m living proof of what the McGill study found. My French teachers in school made us memorize endings that are typically masculine or feminine, and that has continued to help me through my years of learning French and becoming fluent.

But maybe this method doesn’t work for you. You might not be good at or like to memorize long lists, or you may find it easier to memorize things in a different, less straightforward way. Luckily, there are many other strategies you can use to memorize genders in French. Some of the most popular are:

Memorize new French words with an article

You’ve probably come across lists of French vocabulary with a definite or indefinite article in front of each word. Although French people don’t use articles every single time they say a word, memorizing words along with an article is a very easy way to ingrain in your memory if a word is masculine and feminine. And as you start memorizing words this way, you may notice that certain types of words tend to be one gender or another, which will give you more of a chance of guessing, if you ever have to. Personally, although the endings method is the one I’ve found the most useful, I’ve always tried to memorize vocabulary with an article, as well.

Memorize categories of words that are typically masculine or feminine

Although learning word endings that tend to be masculine or feminine is a more all-encompassing method, learning categories that are commonly masculine or feminine can be pretty helpful, too. Of course, not everything can be neatly put into a category that has all or mostly masculine or feminine nouns, but there are a decent amount of categories out there, and maybe, as you learn French, you’ll notice patterns and come up with categories that make sense and work for you, in addition to the established ones. 

Remember that if a word in a particular category has another meaning, the gender of that second meaning probably won’t be the same (we’ll talk more about this a little later on). So, for example, orange is masculine when it’s a color and feminine when it’s a fruit.

Here are some categories of French words that are typically masculine:

• wines 
• cheeses (although there are some exceptions, usually involving the description of the form of the cheese, for example, la tomme, une brique)
• colors
• metric units
• numbers (note that the numeric concept that ends in -aine (=about this much, this decade of a person’s life, is feminine (la quarantaine, une cinquaiantaine de personnes))
• metals
• languages
• trees
• days of the week
• seasons
• months

Here are some categories of French words that are typically feminine:

• brand names of cars
• brand names of watches
• names of rivers
• sciences and other domains of learning (la science, l’histoire, la chimie, etc.). Le droit (the law) is one notable exception to this rule.

For more details about these categories, you can have a look at this list or this one, which includes links to two French podcasts about how to tell what gender a word is.

As you can see, these categories don’t cover every subject in the French language, so this method should be used with another one to be able to guess a word’s gender with accuracy. But it can be a very helpful way to quickly guess the gender of words that do fall into these categories, or if you’re working with these categories (say, talking about the colors of a painting), you’ll know you can keep the gender the same.

Pay attention when you watch, read, and listen to French

This is another strategy that has helped me quite a bit.  If you hear or see a word with its article enough, or hear/see it used with adjectives, you’ll become accustomed to it being associated with a gender. 

For instance, I used to babysit a little French boy who loved to sing the  French lullaby “Au Clair de la lune”. I quickly picked it up, and we’d sing it every afternoon. I got used to associating the nouns in the song with the words around them that signified their gender. For example, la lune, ta plume, un mot, ta porte.

It’s been years since I babysat that little boy, and years since I’ve been speaking French, so when I say or write those words today, the song doesn’t necessarily come to mind, but there was a time when it did for some of them!  

So, if you like music, poetry, books, movies, TV series – just about anything that can let you hear/see and become familiar with French words in situ, this is a great way to supplement your French word gender knowledge.

Associate each gender with a vivid image

If none of these other strategies speak to you, here’s another that’s often recommended:  Instead of simply learning each word and its gender by heart, it can be smart to associate each gender with an action in your mind.

You could imagine, for example, that masculine nouns fall into water while feminine nouns are eaten by a monster. Associating each noun with such a vivid image helps you remember its gender more easily.

The association needs to be personal, since it has to be something you will easily remember. For example, If you love to sing, you could sing each word with a different tone depending on its gender.

How to learn and practice French noun gender

One easy way to keep up what you’ve learned about genders in French is to choose a word, guess if it’s masculine or feminine, then look it up online or in a print dictionary to check if you’re right. If you’re not, try saying or writing the word with its masculine or feminine article a few times. You may also want to check if it belongs on the list of typically masculine or feminine word endings.

Want more practice, or different ways to practice? This article includes a great list of French word gender games you can play on your own or with a group. 

French gender rules explained

Now you know how to identify the gender of French nouns. Now let’s see why knowing the gender of French words is so important.

Here are the most important grammatical elements in French that change based on genders.

Articles

In French, you have a masculine “the” (le) and a feminine “the” (la). Good news – there’s a plural “the” (les), but it stays the same for groups/things of either gender.

Similarly, you have a masculine “a” (un) and a feminine “a” (une). Another bit of good news: As with les, the plural form of “a” in French, des, stays the same whether you’re using it with masculine or feminine nouns. 

Finally, while you say “some”, as in “a portion/piece of”, you need to make the distinction between du (masculine) and de la (feminine) in French. 

Pronouns

As in English, pronouns change depending on the subject’s gender.

he = il

she = elle

Note that these pronouns aren’t just used with people, but with any noun, since they all have genders. For example: Nadine est si gentille. Elle m’a prêté sa voiture pour la journée. (Nadine is so kind. She let me borrow her car for the day.)  OR J’en ai marre de cette chaise ! Elle n’est vraiment pas confortable.  (I’m sick of this chair ! It’s really uncomfortable!)

Unlike English, there are two ways to say “they” in French:

elles (feminine subject)

ils (masculine subject)

Note that in French, masculine nouns take precedence over feminine ones. There’s a sad little trick to the French language regarding gender: No matter how many feminine nouns you have, if there’s just one masculine one, it takes precedence. 

For example:

À la cantine, Daniel a choisi une pomme, une soupe, et un sandwich. Ils sont tous sur son plateau.

At the cafeteria, Daniel chose an apple, a bowl of soup, and a sandwich. They’re all on his tray.

Notice that despite the first two items being feminine, because un sandwich is masculine, the entire group is referred to with ils , the masculine plural pronoun. 

This is also the case when you’re talking about people and other living things:

Cléa, Hélène, Rose, et Paul aiment les films. Ils vont au cinéma chaque semaine.

Cléa, Hélène, Rose, and Paul like movies. They go to the cinema every week. 

As you can see, even though most of the people here are female, just one male means you have to use the pronoun ils when you talk about the group.

Adjectives

French adjectives change based on the gender and number of the noun they modify. This means the adjective is either:

• Masculine singular
• Feminine singular
• Masculine plural
• Feminine plural

Let’s take several adjectives as examples. These are adjectives you can use to guess how other adjectives with similar endings will change.

Content (happy)

Masculine singular: content
Feminine singular: contente
Masculine plural: contents
Feminine plural: contentes

Fatigué (tired)

Masculine singular: fatigué
Feminine singular: fatiguée
Masculine plural: fatigués
Feminine plural: fatiguées

Bon (good)

Masculine singular: bon
Feminine singular: bonne
Masculine plural: bons
Feminine plural: bonnes

Read 13 common French mistakes that’ll make you feel awkward before you use this adjective.

Of course, some words change very little when it comes to the noun they’re modifying. If they have an “e” at the end already, the letter stays for masculine nouns as well as feminine ones. For example:

Triste (sad)

Masculine singular: triste
Feminine singular: triste
Masculine plural: tristes
Feminine plural: tristes

There are exceptions, but if you know these patterns, you’ll know how most adjectives change based on the gender of the noun they modify.

And remember the French rule of masculine words always having dominance over feminine ones. In this case, if you’re talking about a group of nouns and just one person/thing is masculine, the adjective you use to describe the group will be masculine, as well.

For example:

Claire, Donald, Céline, Christine, et Roger étaient tous fatigués. 

Claire, Donald, Céline, Christine, et Roger were all tired.

Verbs

The passé composé tense is the most striking example of the influence of genders and number on conjugation, although any verb tense that uses an auxiliary verb can be influenced by the gender and number of the subject. 

When it comes to the passé composé, for example, when you conjugate a verb with the auxiliary être, the past participle must agree with the subject’s gender (and number).

Here, for instance, is the verb aller conjugated in the passé composé:

Je suis allé(e)
Tu es allé(e)
Il/elle est allé(e)
Nous sommes allé(e)s
Vous êtes allé(e)(s)
Ils/elles sont allé(e)s

As you can see, the verb changes based on the subject’s number and gender. This is also true for other compound tenses.

In addition, verb agreement is a “must” when a verb conjugated with avoir is a direct object. For example, Voici la robe que tu as achetée pour Juliette. 

These differences are only noticeable in written French since the pronunciation remains the same.

The meaning of certain words 

In certain cases, gender can be used to clarify the meaning of a word with two very distinct definitions.

For example, the word voile in French can either mean a sail or a veil. In a genderless language like English, we’d just rely on the context to know which one was being talked about. But French people decided  to use gender to be sure that the meaning is clear. So, une voile is a sail and un voile is a veil. Voilà – no confusion! Except for non-native speakers who would inherently expect a veil, an accessory typically worn by females, to be the feminine one….

Luckily there aren’t a huge number of French words with different meanings in different genders. You can find a pretty thorough list of them here, although note that this source also includes homonyms (words that sound the same but are spelled differently), which don’t exactly pose the same challenge.  

Have feminism and the gender equality movement had an effect on the French noun genders?

Regardless of your gender, if you’re someone who wants equality for everyone (a.k.a. a decent human being), the fact that, in French, masculine nouns take precedence over feminine ones may bum you out a little. 

You could say, “They’re just words.” But the truth is, the logic behind this rule was probably that males are more important and powerful than females. The French love of classifying things and making them concise means that you couldn’t have adjectives/verbs/pronouns that agree with both genders, so one had to be chosen, and the one that was chosen was the gender that had the most power at the time: masculine. 

Luckily, French law today considers male and female citizens equal, with equal rights. Socially speaking, however, I personally find that it depends. In my own experience, I find that younger generations are much more open to gender equality, not just in theory but in practice. For example, older generations may not think men should help with household chores, but many of the younger Frenchmen I know do help with chores, as well as taking care of and spending one-on-one time with their children.

You can see some signs of social change in in the French language itself. For example, traditionally, jobs like teachers and writers were only used with masculine nouns. But nowadays, you can choose  to make them feminine, like so: une professeur/une prof (a (female) teacher); une écrivain (or une écrivaine, especially in Canadian French) (a female writer). 

Many other professions can now also be feminized, since the concept has been officially recognized by the Académie Française (a ruling that was only made in 2019). 

Sadly, some other jobs, like un médecin (a doctor) only take the masculine pronoun. So, even if you go to a female doctor, she would be referred to as un médecin.  That means that not only do concepts that may reinforce gender stereotypes persist in the language used for some French professions; unpredictable gender rules do, too.

Interestingly, this isn’t the case in all forms of French. For instance, in Canadian French, une médecin and une docteure are used, and doctoresse is used in Swiss and Belgian French. 

This being said, there are some feminists and activists who think that feminizing a profession is sexist unto itself and that all professions in French should simply be a single word, not two separate, male and female versions. You can compare this to the way the word “actor” is being used more and more frequently to describe both males and females with this profession in the Anglophone world.

Other than these changes, when it comes to gender in the French language, not much has happened in terms of everyday vocabulary and grammar. Not that this isn’t understandable; imagine trying to change a language in such a massive way. 

Still, nothing’s impossible – or, as the French like to say, impossible n’est pas français. There’s a linguistic theory that as languages evolve, they become less complex. You can see this, for example, in the case of English, which did have genders in its older forms, as well as a formal and informal “you”. So, one day French words may not have genders at all. No matter how you feel about gender equality, that has to make you feel good for future learners of French!

The gender of words in French – as well as their grammatical and social implications – can be complicated. If there’s only one thing you take away from this article, it should be that the majority of words ending in -e or -ion are feminine while words with other endings are mostly masculine. This won’t hold true 100% of the time, but you’re much more likely to be right if you follow this rule than if you simply guess.

What about you? How do you determine whether a French word is masculine or feminine? Share your thoughts in the comments section!