Masculine and feminine gender

French nouns are divided into two genders-masculine and feminine. There is no neuter; to a frenchman everything is a "he" or a "she". As a general rule, male animate beings are masculine.

> Gender depending on the meaning of the word.

1 MASCULINE

Names of metals, trees, months, days of the week, seasons, languages.

2 FEMININE

Names of countries and towns ending in e/ Flowers, fruits and vegetables ending in e/ Names of sciences.

> Gender depending on the ending of the word

1 MASCULINE TERMINATIONS: age, ail, eau, ège, eil, ice, ier, ment, oir, our.

2 FEMININE TERMINATIONS: ade, aille, aison, ance, ée, eille, ence, esse, ette, ie, ière, ille, ion, ise, té, tié, tion, tude, ue, ure.

> Nouns with one form for boths sexes

Others have only one form for both sexes: enfant, élève, artiste, hypocrite, artiste..

> Making a Masculine word into Corresponding feminine

Very often we can make a feminine word out of a masculine by adding an e.

Le cousin - La cousine

Le marquis - La marquise

Ami - amie

Sometimes, the final consonant is modified or doubled:

Le loup - la louve

Le veuf - la veuve

Le chat - La chatte

Le parisien - La parisienne

> Feminine of words ending in -EUR

Words ending in -EUR present a special difficulty. Some, comparative in meaning, add an e to the masculine:

Le Majeur - La Majeure

Le Mineur - La Mineure

Others, which have the same stem as the present participle of the verb, change -EUR to -EUSE:

Le voleur - La voleuse

Le vendeur - La vendeuse

Words ending in -TEUR form their feminines in -TRICE:

L'acteur - L'actrice

Le lecteur - La lectrice