Gender of Inanimate Nouns and Concepts

Memorizing the gender of nouns referring to things is one of the most difficult parts of learning French, as assigning gender to an object or concept is unfamiliar to native English speakers. Is there any logic to this process? In many cases, it seems arbitrary, and there’s no way of guessing. Fortunately, some categories of nouns do follow logical rules. 

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For example, it is indeed possible to identify the gender of a country based on its ending. La France is a feminine noun because it ends in e. (Note that we say la France even though it’s a proper noun. Unlike in English, all names of countries are preceded by an article in French.)

 

Le nom de la France vient du mot "Franc"

The name of France comes from the word "Franc" [Frank]

Caption 3, Le saviez-vous? D'où vient le nom de la France?

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That said, there are always exceptions. Even though it also ends in an e, le Mexique (Mexico) is masculine:

 

Maintenant avec leur aide, partons sur-le-champ conquérir le Mexique!

Now with their aid, let's leave at once to conquer Mexico!

Caption 29, Il était une fois: Les Amériques 9. Cortés et les Aztèques - Part 8

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But as for countries that don’t end in an e, it’s easy! They are automatically masculine: le Canada, le Japon, le Luxembourg (Canada, Japan, Luxembourg).

 

Pierre Trudeau, Premier Ministre du Canada, a dit que c'était une loi de fou.

Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, said it was a crazy law.

Caption 28, Le Québec parle aux Français - Part 3

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What about cities? Do they follow the same rule as countries? Not exactly. The Académie Française (the official French language watchdog, if you will) doesn’t give a definite answer, noting that people tend to prefer masculine although feminine is often used in literary contexts. 

 

In the video below, we can tell that Paris is masculine because of the masculine past participle traversé (intersected):

 

Car Paris était traversé à l'époque par un aqueduc

For Paris was intersected at the time by an aqueduct

Caption 39, Voyage dans Paris Le Treizième arrondissement de Paris - Part 2

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French speakers often get around the gender ambiguity by using the expression c’est (it’s), which always requires a masculine agreement. Instead of saying Paris est belle or Paris est beau (Paris is beautiful), Sophie uses the phrase c’est + masculine to describe Paris:

 

C'est beau Paris comme ça.

Paris is beautiful like this.

Caption 1, Sophie et Patrice Paris, c'est gris

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The gender of languages is much more clear-cut. All languages are masculine, from le français (French) to le thaï (Thai):

 

Je crois que le français est une langue géniale.

I believe that French is a great language.

Caption 11, Allons en France Pourquoi apprendre le français?

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Note, however, that if you say "the French language" or "the Thai language" instead of just "French" or "Thai," you have to use the feminine, because the word langue (language) is feminine: la langue françaisela langue thaïe.

 

Most foreign words are also masculine, in particular sports names and terms borrowed from English. It’s a simple matter of putting a masculine article like le (the) in front of the loanword:

 

Il aime le football.

He likes soccer.

Caption 33, Lionel L Les liaisons et le h aspiré

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On the other hand, native French sports terms are either masculine or feminine. For example, we have two words for “bicycle”: le vélo, which is masculine, and la bicyclette, which is feminine.

 

Tu peux faire du vélo

You can ride a bike

Caption 31, Amal et Caroline Le Parc de la Villette

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Most inanimate nouns follow no predictable pattern when it comes to gender. When we talk about feelings, for example, we say le bonheur (happiness) but la joie (joy): 

 

Y a de la joie. On est avec les petits.

There's good cheer. We are with the little ones.

Caption 45, Actu Vingtième Fête du quartier Python-Duvernois

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C'est quand le bonheur?

When is happiness?

Caption 9, Cali C'est quand le bonheur

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To complicate things further, some words take both genders, and their meaning changes depending on whether they're masculine or feminine (we discuss this at length in our lesson One Word, Two Genders). For example, un livre is "a book," but une livre is "a pound": 

 

L'extérieur d'un livre s'appelle la couverture.

The outside of a book is called the cover.

Caption 4, Manon et Clémentine Vocabulaire du livre

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Une livre équivaut à environ quatre cent cinquante-quatre grammes. 

One pound is equal to around four hundred fifty-four grams.

 

And there is a small group of noun pairs that have slightly different meanings in the masculine and feminine that aren't conveyed in English. For example, the words an and année both mean "year," but the masculine an emphasizes a point in time or a unit of time, while the feminine année stresses duration: 

 

Un manuscrit de mille deux cents ans

A one thousand two hundred year old manuscript

Caption 9, Télé Lyon Métropole Un manuscrit vieux de 1200 ans découvert à Lyon

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Ça fait des années et des années qu'ils cherchent à être logés.

For years and years they've sought housing.

Captions 35-36, Actus Quartier Devant la SNCF

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Whether you’ve been studying French pendant des années (for years) or you’ve only just begun, with practice, remembering the gender of nouns will become easier. Thank you for reading the final lesson of this series!

 
Grammar

It's All in the Past! - Part 3 - Irregular -Ir Verbs

In Part 2, we explored the passé composé of second-group verbs, or verbs whose infinitives end in -ir. In this lesson, we’ll discuss irregular -ir verbs, which belong to the third group.

 

As mentioned in our previous lesson, -ir verbs are classified, in addition to their infinitive endings, according to their present participles (equivalent to the -ing ending of a verb in English). So, all -ir verbs with a present participle ending in -issant (such as finirfinissant [finishing]) belong to the second group and have a past participle ending in -i.

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On the other hand, most irregular -ir verbs have a present participle ending in -ant and a past participle ending in -u.

 

For example, tenir (to keep, hold) becomes tenant (keeping, holding) and tenu (kept, held): 

 

en tenant la poêle de la main droite

while holding the pan with the right hand

Caption 33, Le saviez-vous? - La tradition de la Chandeleur

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Mais elle a également tenu sa promesse.

But she has also kept her promise.

Caption 33, Le Jour où tout a basculé - Mon père s'oppose à ma passion

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It’s a good idea to learn the derivatives of a verb, as they usually share the same conjugation rules. All verbs ending in -tenir will work the same way. So, obtenir (to obtain) and retenir (to retain) also have a past participle ending in -u: obtenu, retenu

 

The same applies to all the derivatives of venir (to come), such as devenir (to become) and prévenir (to warn):

 

Et il a prévenu les flics.

And he called the cops.

Caption 32, Le Jour où tout a basculé - À la recherche de mon père

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Having said that… there’s an oddball bunch of -ir verbs that have a present participle ending in -ant and a past participle ending in -i, not -u

 

For example, partir (to leave) becomes partant and parti: 

 

Mais... en partant,

But... as she left,

elle m'a donné son numéro de téléphone.

she gave me her phone number.

Captions 35-36, Extr@ - Ep. 6 - Le jour du loto

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Leurs parents sont partis vivre en Australie il y a une dizaine d'années

Their parents went to live in Australia around ten years ago

Caption 10, Le Jour où tout a basculé - À la recherche de mon passé

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And sortir (to go out) becomes sortant and sorti:

 

Drôles d'étudiants que ceux-là,

Strange students they are,

habitant l'hôtel et sortant en robe longue et nœud papillon.

living in a hotel and going out in long dresses and bow ties.

Caption 12, Le Journal - L'Institut du goût

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Le mec, il est sorti

The guy went out

Caption 3, Sophie et Patrice - La révolution est-elle en cours?

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Note that partir and sortir are also part of a small group of verbs that require the auxiliary être (to be) in the passé composé, which we will discuss in a future lesson.

 

Finally, there is a minority of -ir verbs that are quite irregular and unpredictable, with a past participle ending in -ert

 

For example, the past participle of ouvrir (to open) is actually ouvert, not ouvri as its stem would suggest!

 

...qui a ouvert ses portes récemment à Mittelhausbergen

that recently opened its doors in Mittelhausbergen

Caption 3, Alsace 20 - Mangez bien, mangez alsacien!

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Again, to make it easier for yourself, learn how to conjugate ouvrir along with its derivatives, like découvrir (to discover), recouvrir (to cover up), couvrir (to cover), whose past participles all end in -ouvertThat will save you a lot of trouble. Speaking of trouble, the group of Canadians in the example below suffered a lot because of English…

 

Moi j'ai souffert beaucoup dans mon enfance de l'anglais ici.

I suffered a lot in my childhood with English here.

Caption 19, Le Québec parle - aux Français

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We hope that vous n’avez pas trop souffert (you didn’t suffer too much) learning about irregular -ir verbs in the passé composé, because we have another round of third-group verbs waiting to be discovered (découvert) in our next lesson!

 
Grammar