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Are there any tips to memorize French noun gender?
Shuimo finds it such a heavy burden to memorize the gender of French nouns.
While cuisine,surprise, tasse are female, portable, article,the, internet are male.
Are there any tips to memorize French noun gender?
Is the gender of nouns important in French?
Why does Frech retain such primitive linguistic habits which are totally useless?
Just learn the words with articles.
Learn Spanish. The genders are almost always the same.
So there, you can see that words in 'le' tend to be masculine.
Well look at it this way - they're either masculine and feminine. I know this seems to be stating the obvious, but when you find you that there's neuter as well, like in German or Latin, it becomes so much harder to remember them.
You're self-learning I gather, so try to use certain words in sentences, looking them up. Then remember the sentences - perhaps create a song, make up a conversation. Include adjectives. Then, when you're going over the song (which will now be irritatingly rattling around your head), you'll subconsciously notice the gender. For example, I could never remember whether 'problème' was masculine or feminine - but my French teacher was always asking 'petit problème?' and when I thought of this phrase, I noted that she didn't pronounce the 't' in 'petit', so it was masculine (not 'petite').
Many, many words in French are obvious - most words in '-ion' are feminine - and also the same to their English equivalents, or at least very similar. Words ending in '-ment' are predominantly masculine.
Finally, if it's any consolation, they do start coming naturally after a while!
Back in French class, we used to have an old rule: If the word ends in 'e', it must be feminine. I think this rule is valid about 50.1% of the time.
You should be able to use your intuition in 90% of the cases, just use your knowledge of other closely-related dialects like English to fill in the few gaps.
<<Learn Spanish. The genders are almost always the same.>>
Hmm, that doesn't help, the problem would remain.
Most nouns falling into the following categories are typically masculine :
Male humans and animals: l'homme (man), le fermier (farmer), le tigre (tiger)
Days, months, seasons, compass points: le mardi (Tuesday), le mai (May), l'automme (autumn), l'ouest (west)
Countries and rivers not ending in -e : le Danemark ( Denmark ), le Lot (the Lot ),
Languages: le francais (French), le russe (Russian)
Colors: le bleu (blue), le jaune (yellow)
Metric weights and measures, cardinal numbers, fractions and letters: le litre (litre), le trios (the number three), un quart (a quarter), le S (the letter S)
Trees and shrubs: le pommier (apple tree), le lilas (lilac)
Fruits and vegetables not ending in -e : le citron (lemon), le melon (melon)
Metals and minerals: le fer (iron), le sel (salt)
Nouns in the following categories are typically feminine :
Female humans and animals: la femme (woman), la lionne (lioness)
Female roles or occupational names: l'actrice (actress), la reine (queen).
Countries and rivers ending in -e : la Suisse ( Switzerland ), la Loire (the Loire )
Most fruit, flowers and vegetables: la banane (banana), la carotte (carrot)
School subjects, apart from specific languages (see above): les langues (fpl) (languages), la science (science)
Arts, trades and sciences: la sculpture (sculpture), la physique (physics)
Festivals: la Toussaint (All Saints' Day)
If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, I can suggest an inexpensive app
that I've recently made; it helps you 'internalize'
the 'rules' of identifying the gender of 95% of
french nouns.
www.reflexarium.com
Regards,
Sean (Erasmos)
" Countries and rivers ending in -e : la Suisse ( Switzerland ), la Loire (the Loire ) "
wrong. rivers or countries ending in -e but masculine :
LE Rhône (the Rhone); LE Mexique (Mexico); LE Bélize;
It is when it finish in -IE that it should normaly be feminine;
La Lybie; La Turquie; La Roumanie; La Lybie; etc. When it starts with a vowel you will not use "le" or "la" but "l'". That said, the name still have a defined gender: when it ends with -IE you can be sure (almost) that it is feminine:
L'Italie; L'Arabie; etc. are feminine.
For some countries you don't use any article. I must confess I don't know why: Cuba (not "le" or "la" cuba); Madagascar; Israel, etc.
ewrfa: "Just learn the words with articles."
That method does not work. Please do not recommend methods that you yourself have never tried.
Some words in Spanish have ambiguous gender, some change gender from singular to plural. E.g: "arte" is a good example. You have "el arte chino" and "las artes chinas". The best way of learning gender actually is still to learn a combination of noun plus adjective. You have to choose a real object/thing/experience that you have seen, and then remember the whole article+noun+adjective combo.
As for gender confusion, is not just foreign language learners that have problem, even native speakers have problems from time to time. And genders often change from one dialect to another or from one period of time to another. If you ask about the gender of a word in those more complicated cases to a native speaker, they will invariably cite a combination of article+noun+adjective that they have stored inside their brain, and then tell you their opinion.
If you learn a lot of words you can pretty much guess the gender of each word, as the words that rhymes usually share the same gender.
La foi, la loi, la roi
la maison, la combinaison
etc.
" If you learn a lot of words you can pretty much guess the gender of each word, as the words that rhymes usually share the same gender. "
No. That is limited to some endings (-tion, isme), but not all.
" La foi, la loi, la roi "
wrong. We say "LE roi". But also "le desarroi"; etc.
and of course "le pois", "le choix", "le mois", "le foie", etc.
" la maison, la combinaison "
Wrong, we say "LE poison";
And also "le poisson", "le son"
And lots of masculine words ending in "on": "un marron", "un bucheron", " un ourson", etc.
But, inversely words in "-isme" are masculine;
Humanisme, intégrisme, catholicisme, socialisme, fascisme, etc.
Words in "-tion" are always feminine:
la sanction, l'action, l'intégration, la section, la finition, etc.
Words in "-ssion" are always feminine;
la passion, la mission, fission, etc.
" Most nouns falling into the following categories are typically masculine :
" Male animals: le tigre (tiger) "
wrong in that case. In that case if "tigre" is masculine is not because the animal a male; but because the word "tigre" is masculine whatever the animal is a male or a female (you can have the name "tigresse" which is limited to femane tiger; but "tigre" fits for both female and males; but still is masculine. The inverse exist: "Une girafe" (a giraffe) is a feminine name, but fits to the whole specie, whatever the animal is male or female; the same way "une baleine" (a whale); "une oie"; "une chouette", etc.
" Days: le mardi (Tuesday)"
Yes, but it is because "day" is a masculine word. when we say "Mardi"; it like if we said a contraction of "le jour de mardi" so "le mardi".
" le mai (May) "
We can't say that. Months can't have articles, we just say "Mai", not "le mai". we have to say "un mois de mai", which is masculine, since "mois" is masculine.
Nouns in the following categories are typically feminine :
" Countries and rivers ending in -e : la Suisse ( Switzerland ), la Loire (the Loire )"
Well, generally it might be true but there are some exceptions: Le Mexique, le Maine, le Cambodge, le Rhône, le centre, etc.
" Most fruit, flowers and vegetables: la banane (banana), la carotte (carrot)"
Le poireau, le poivron, le melon, le soja, le blé, le raisin, l'abricot, le concombre, le poivre, le kiwi, le haricot, le maïs, l'avocat, etc.
" School subjects, apart from specific languages (see above): les langues (fpl) (languages), la science (science) "
it depends of the field of subjects; when most sciences (including human sciences) are feminine (la géographie, l'histoire); languages are masculine "le Français", "l'Anglais", "le latin", "le grec"; sports can be either "le karaté", "la boxe", "le football", "la lutte", etc.
" Arts"
Een if a lot of major arts are feminine there are also masculine ones: "Le cinéma"; "le Théâtre"; "l'Opéra", etc.
The real way to know which article to use is to learn it. It is not a difficult think, since it has to be learned in the same time than the word itself. It has no meaning to learn only the word without learning in the same time its gender. Once it is done you will never forget it and it will be so natural.
We, native francophones, have learned those words that way. When a kid ask his mother "what is this?"; the mother answers "une..." or "un ...", that way th kid put all the things he knows in two categories; masculine or feminine, very naturally; without needing to find rules (which usually don't exist).
"
" la maison, la combinaison "
Wrong, we say "LE poison";
And also "le poisson", "le son"
And lots of masculine words ending in "on": "un marron", "un bucheron", " un ourson", etc. "
I was referring to -aison, not just -son.
la saison
la fumaison
la plumaison
la tomaison
-ÈCHE
la brèche
la crèche
la drèche
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