They are often the French adaptations of Arabic words. Most French teachers and fellow French speakers will tell you that there’s no rhyme or reason to whether a noun is masculine or feminine. These words tend to be words that came into French from Arabic speaking colonies of French. One other thing that I have noticed about feminine French vocabulary words, is that they also sometimes end with an –a. All French nouns are either masculine or feminine, with the balance being fairly evenly. This question relates to: French lesson "Make most adjectives feminine by adding -e" The good thing is, there are many shortcuts you can take to get the correct answer. A type of small fish, Carassius auratus, typically orange-colored. In French, however, things are either masculine or feminine. As things do not divide into sexes the way humans and animals do, there are no physical clues to help you with their gender in French. most masculine words in spanish end in L O N E R or S, and most feminine words end in D IÓN Z or A. French doesn't really have that sort of system, so it is a bit harder to memorize feminine and masculine in french. French Grammar: Nouns – Masculine and Feminine la grammaire française: les substantifs – masculins et féminins. General Kudro Of Drannith, Austin Abrams Euphoria, It is not so much because things are masculine or feminine. Discussion. There are a couple exceptions to the ends in –e rule. Unfortunately, there is no magic formula to know whether a noun is masculine or feminine. Common Masculine Endings. Note: there’s some debate about Antarctique, which is feminine according to Larousse but masculine according to Le Petit Robert, perhaps because the latter doesn’t seem to consider it a noun in its own right, but rather an abbreviation of le continent antarctique.. Nearly all countries that end in -e are feminine. A noun’s gender determines what articles (the equivalents of “the” and “a”) can be used with it. How to tell if something is masculine or feminine in french. But if a girl needs a feminine article--indefinitive: "une" or definitive: "la," it is because it should be so. While there’s some truth to this, largely due to the long-term evolution of the French language, there are some rules (and exceptions) to get most nouns on lock. French nouns (les substantifs) are people, places, and things. Bilingual dictionaries also use m. for masculine and f. for feminine.If you see m./f., the noun may be either gender depending upon the person or thing to which you are referring. Watch out! In French, ALL nouns are either MASCULINE (masculin) nouns or FEMININE (féminin) nouns. If noun gender is a new concept to you, then it may be tempting to think that masculine and feminine nouns are driven by gender; while this is sometimes the case, it isn’t guaranteed. The feminine articles in french are une, or la, and the feminine in spanish are la or una. One of the first things a French learner discovers is that every French noun is either masculine or feminine. The title is a bit vague so I'll try to explain what I mean as best as I can; If I was asked to translate "Suitcase" into french, It would be "Valise" Now I was then needed to translate the sentence "The Suitcase" In a bilingual dictionary, nouns may be designated by an n. (noun) or an s. (substantive, a word that stands for noun). Today, you learned you can guide yourself by the ending of a word. Try to learn the gender as you learn the word. A noun is a word used to name a person, place, thing, idea, or quality. How do you tell whether an object is masculine or feminine As in, I know that 'un' in masculine, and 'une' is feminine, but how do you tell if an everyday object is masculine or feminine. They have names! Not quite.