French Grammar Explained /
Definite articles
French, like Spanish, Italian, German... has genders for its nouns.
Unlike English, we just use "the". So much easier...
Nouns in French have gender. The common way to refer to these is masculine and feminine, though (except for humans and animals) this gender doesn't imply anything feminine or masculine about the noun.
The bits of grammar around nouns, like articles, will change a bit to match the gender of the noun that they refer to.
Okay, well at least it's only two genders, and not three like in German.
Crazy Germans...
Definite Articles
Articles go in front of nouns to give them a specificity. If you are referring to something specific, you use the in English (definite article).
In French the definite article has three forms le, la, les according to the gender and number of the noun they refer to:
| singular | plural |
m | le massage ⇒ the massage | les massages ⇒ the massages |
f | la table ⇒ the table | les tables ⇒ the tables |
If the noun starts with a vowel or h, le or la becomes l'
| singular | plural |
m | l'hôtel ⇒ the hotel | les hôtels ⇒ the hotels |
f | l'adresse ⇒ the address | les adresses ⇒ the addresses |
Just to be clear, le and la are not necessarily boy and girl, right?
No, it's really just a matter of whether the noun is masculine or feminine, not male or female.
D'accord ! I think I can remember that!