Grammar: Gender of Nouns

In French, all nouns are masculine or feminine.

Most nouns that express entities with gender (people and animals) use both a feminine form and a masculine form (e.g., “acteur” (m.), “actrice” (f.)).

The nouns that express entities without gender (e.g., objects and abstract concepts) have only one form. This form can be masculine or feminine.

There are some nouns that express entities with gender for which there is only one form, which is used regardless of the actual gender of the entity (e.g., “personne” (always f.), “professeur” (always m.)).

Examples:

Masculine

Some endings that are usually used with masculine nouns are:

Feminine

Some endings that are usually used with feminine nouns are:

Grammar: Definite and Indefinite Articles

The Definite Article

In English, the definite article is always “the”.

In French, the definite article is different, depending on whether the noun is feminine, masculine, singular, or plural, as well as whether the noun begins with a vowel (“a”, “e”, “i”, “o”, “u”, or silent “h”).

The Indefinite Article

In English, the indefinite articles are "a" and "an" (both singular, there being no plural indefinite article—you'd say "articles", not "an articles").

In French, there are different forms for feminine, masculine, singular, and plural indefinite articles.

Grammar: Subject pronouns

French has six different types of pronouns: the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person singular and the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person plural.

When referring to more than one person in the 2nd person, “vous” must be used. When referring to a single person, “vous” or “tu” may be used; “vous” is used to show respect (e.g., to a teacher) or formality (e.g., between businessmen), while “tu” is used informally (e.g., between friends).

When using the 3rd person plural and referring to a group of both males and females, the male form is used.

In everyday language, “on” is used, instead of “nous”, to express “we”; the verb is always used in the 3rd person singular. For example, (colloqial) “On se rencontre au cinéma à sept heures.” (cf. (formal) “Nous nous rencontrons au cinéma à sept heures.”)

Grammar: The verb être

“Être” can be translated to “to be”. Here, we will look at the conjugations in the present indicative. There is one conjugation for each of the six subject pronouns. (For all conjugations shown in this book, the “il” conjugation is the same as the “elle” conjugation, and the “ils” conjugation is the same as the “elles” conjugation.)

Être

Examples