Gender in French language

[VinayaSpeaks]

I find gender most difficult aspect of French grammar. Most of the animate as well as inanimate words have gender.How do we differentiate gender of any words in French language?

[BWL]

5 hours ago, VinayaSpeaks said:

I find gender most difficult aspect of French grammar. Most of the animate as well as inanimate words have gender.How do we differentiate gender of any words in French language?

That's a good question! Here's a rough (OK, very rough) guide:

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 usually masculine.

There are numerous exceptions, for example "la plage" and "le poète", that the above rules will work with about 80% of French nouns you will encounter.

Happy Learning!

[Rachel]

I can tell whether a word in french in masculine or feminine, but when I attempt to translate English to French, how do I know if a certain thing should be masculine or feminine?

[polyglutton]

As a native Spanish teacher, this is easier for me because most French words' genders correlate with their Spanish genders. I think the best way to memorize genders is to visualize it every time you read it. (Ex: "La Table", picture a table along with any feminine accessories you can think of.)

[Xequeo]

Like every language with gender it's better to learn it with the word than looking for rules with so many exceptions (it could be easier for some languages like Russian). The story of gender in French, who lost the neutral one of Latin origin, is a little bit complicated...

les origines du genre

Exercices and tips