Nouns and articles
Masculine and feminine, singular and plural, and le, la, l', les, un, une and des, including where French uses an article and English does not.
Learn
Nouns and articles, explained point by point
Everything the GCSE specification expects you to be able to do, and how to actually do it - the same lesson a signed-in student studies from.
Learn every noun with its gender
Every French noun is masculine or feminine, and the words around it change to match. Learn each one with le or la: le livre, la table. Some endings help: nouns in -tion are feminine (la natation), while nouns in -ment and most in -age are masculine (le bâtiment, le fromage).
Use le, la, l' and les for the
Le is masculine and la feminine, and both become l' before a vowel or a silent h: l'école, l'hôtel. Les is the plural for both: les chiens, les maisons.
Use un, une and des for a and some
Un is masculine and une feminine: un oncle, une tante. The plural des means some, and French needs it where English often says nothing: j'ai des cousins means I have cousins.
Make nouns plural
Most nouns add an -s that you cannot hear: un chat, des chats. Nouns ending in -eau or -eu add -x (un gâteau, des gâteaux; un jeu, des jeux), and those already ending in -s or -x stay the same: un bus, des bus. A few change completely, such as un œil, des yeux.
Make the feminine of nouns for people
Many add -e: un ami, une amie. Some change their ending: un chanteur, une chanteuse; un acteur, une actrice; un musicien, une musicienne. Others stay the same, and only the article changes: un élève, une élève.
Use the article where English leaves it out
French uses le, la or les for things in general and after likes and dislikes: j'aime le chocolat, la musique est importante. With a day of the week, le means every: le samedi is on Saturdays.
Turn an adjective or an infinitive into a noun
An article in front of an adjective makes a noun: les jeunes (young people), le dernier (the last one), le français (French, the language). A nationality used as a noun takes a capital: un Français, une Écossaise. An infinitive can act as a noun where English uses -ing: nager est bon pour la santé.
Nouns and articles key terms
The words the specification and the mark schemes use, each defined the way an examiner wants it.
- Gender
- Whether a noun is masculine or feminine. It decides the article and the endings of adjectives: un petit chien, une petite maison.
- Definite article
- The word for the: le, la, l' or les.
- Indefinite article
- The word for a or some: un, une or des.
- Elision
- Dropping the vowel of le or la before a vowel or a silent h, and writing an apostrophe: l'ami, l'histoire.
- Silent h
- An h that is never pronounced, which lets le and la shorten to l', as in l'heure and l'hiver.
- Plural
- More than one. Most plurals add a silent -s, so you often hear the number only in the article: le livre, les livres.
- des
- Some, or any, before a plural noun. English often leaves it out, but French never does: il y a des arbres means there are trees.
- Nationality noun
- A noun for a person from a country, written with a capital, unlike the adjective: un Français, but il est français.
Common mistakes in Nouns and articles
The slips that cost marks year after year, and what to do instead.
Leaving out the article, as in j'aime chocolat.
Likes, dislikes and things in general take le, la or les: j'aime le chocolat, je déteste les maths.
Writing le école or la amie.
Before a vowel or a silent h, le and la become l': l'école, l'amie, l'hôtel.
Leaving out des, as in j'ai frères for I have brothers.
French needs an article where English has none: j'ai des frères. After a negative it becomes de: je n'ai pas de frères.
Adding -s to nouns that take -x, as in des gâteaus or des jeus.
Nouns ending in -eau and -eu take -x in the plural: des gâteaux, des jeux, des cheveux.
Writing le samedi when you mean this coming Saturday.
For one particular day, use the day on its own: samedi, je vais au cinéma. Le samedi means every Saturday.
Practice
Try a Nouns and articles question
A GCSE-style original question from this topic. Have a go before you open the working - deciding on an answer first is what makes the working stick.
Which of these nouns is masculine?
- natation
- émission
- bâtiment
- information
Show the answer and the working
Answer: bâtiment
Nouns ending in -ment are masculine, so it is le bâtiment; nouns in -tion and -sion are feminine.
- -ment nouns are masculine.
- -tion and -sion nouns are feminine.
- So le bâtiment.