Nouns and French Genders

Noun and Genders in French: Animals

Noun Genders

One of the most difficult aspects of learning French is memorizing noun genders. However, by spending some time now memorizing the following patterns, you may be able to guess most nouns' genders and save yourself a lot of trouble in the future.

Some nouns, like l'élève ("the student"), have the same spelling and meaning in both forms. Other nouns have the same spelling, but have different meanings. Un tour is a tour, while une tour is a tower. There are also nouns that only have one possible gender. Even a baby girl is un bébé, for instance. Many masculine nouns can be changed to a feminine form simply by adding an -e to the end. Your male friend is un ami and your female friend is une amie.

Some genders depend on a noun's classification. For instance, languages, days of the week, months, seasons, metals, colors, and measurements are mostly masculine.

Otherwise, memorizing word endings is the best way to guess genders. We'll learn these ending patterns in four steps:

First, the basic pattern is that nouns ending in -e are feminine. All others, especially nouns ending in consonants, are masculine. This is true for over 70% of all nouns.

Second, there are two consonant endings that are generally feminine: -ion and -son.

Third, there are nouns endings in -e that are usually masculine. These are:

-tre, -ble, -cle (think "treble clef")
-one, -ème, -ège (think "OMG")
-age, -isme
Fourth, there are a few endings that either have a lot of exceptions or are otherwise more complicated.

-é is masculine, but not -té
le résumé (masc) — the resumé
la liberté (fem) — the liberty
-de is masculine, but not -ade, -nde, -ude
le guide — the guide
la parade — the parade
-ste and -me tend to be masculine, but there are dozens of exceptions. Words for people ending in -ste are often gender-neutral, e.g. le/la cycliste.
-eur is masculine for most professions or technical terms, but it's feminine for some emotions and abstract things.
le chauffeur — the driver
la peur — the fear
That's it! Memorize these, and you'll be able to guess noun genders quite well.

Feminine Animals

In French, female animal nouns are generally formed as follows by taking the last consonant, doubling it, and adding a mute -e to the end.

un chat ⇒ une chatte
un chien ⇒ une chienne
Of course, there are many exceptions. For example:

un ours ⇒ une ourse (not une oursse)
un cheval ⇒ une jument (not une chevalle)

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