In French, all nouns are either masculine or feminine, that is, they have a grammatical gender. While in some instances the gender is related to the meaning of the noun (mother—mère is feminine; father—père is masculine), it does not necessarily indicate an inherently feminine or masculine quality of the noun. It is always best to learn the gender of the noun when you first encounter it. To help you early on with at least those cases that can be predicted, consult the Learning Tips in chapters two and three of the program.

A single thing, idea or person is said to be in the SINGULAR. Several things, ideas, persons (people) are said to be in the PLURAL. To indicate that a noun is in the plural, French usually adds an -s to the noun, does nothing if the noun already ends in -s or -x, or transforms the ending (usually –al or -eau) into –aux or -eaux.

When you first encounter a new noun in the vocabulary you will see it preceded by the words le or la. Like any word that modifies a noun in some fashion, the definite article also indicates the gender and number of the noun it modifies. These are the forms of the definite article:

SINGULAR
 

PLURAL
 

When a noun begins with a vowel sound (or an h- that is silent or mute in French), the article becomes l’ (i.e., l’avenue, l’hôtel). Gender is not immediately apparent for this type of word, because you cannot see whether it is le or la. Therefore, gender will be given when you encounter such words for the first time in the Vocabulary section with the abbreviations (m.) for masculine and (f.) for feminine.

The definite article is used to indicate a specific object, an object that is modified in some fashion or an object that stands for all objects of its kind.
 

Examples of Definite Articles

• Très bien. Je suis la gardienne, Mme Bertrand.
• La station de taxis? Là-bas, vous voyez?
• Le monsieur trouve la station de taxis.