Adjective Agreement and Placement Français 1 Waters

The Rule Adjectives must agree with the noun it modifies in gender and number.

What does it mean? ADJECTIVES (words that describe a noun) must AGREE (be in the same form) with the NOUN (person, place or thing) it MODIFIES (changes in character or form) in GENDER (a system of classification, in this case Masculine or Feminine) and NUMBER (single or plural).

Making Agreement with regular adjectives Singular Plural Masculine - - - - - S Feminine - E - ES

You have already seen the AGREEMENT rule when using articles.

Masculine / Singular noun with definite article Le cahier

Masculine / Plural Les cahiers

Feminine/Singular with definite article La calculatrice

Feminine/Plural Les calculatrices

Singular / Masculine Noun with indefinite article Un crayon

Plural / Masculine Noun Des crayons

Feminine / Singular Noun with indefinite article Une trousse

Feminine / Plural Noun Des Trousses

You make the same changes when you add adjectives to describe your nouns. Think equality! Whatever characteristic your noun has (m/f, s/p) all words describing that noun MUST have the SAME characteristics!

Masculine/Singular with adjective agreement Le cahier vert

Masculine Plural with adjective agreement Les cahiers verts

Feminine Singular with adjective agreement La trousse rose

Feminine Plural with adjective agreement Les trousses roses

Placement Did you notice where the colors were placed? In French, adjectives are placed AFTER the noun. Naturally, there is an exception called BANGS (but that is a whole different lesson that we will work on after you get this one down!).

Now you try! The blue backpack Le sac à dos bleu

Make the changes! Think equality and word order! The blue backpacks Les sacs à dos bleus

Keep going… The green calculator La calculatrice verte

…and if it is plural??? The green calculators Les calculatrices vertes

Now it’s your turn! 1. Identify the noun in the sentence. 2. Is the noun masculine or feminine? 3. Is the noun singular or plural? 4. Apply the answers to #2 and #3 to ALL words that DESCRIBE the NOUN! BON COURAGE!

Can you fill in the blanks? J’ai une gomme (rose). Tu as un stylo (bleu)? Coline a une trousse (vert). Nous avons des cahiers (noir). Madame a des classeurs (blanc).

J’ai une gomme rose. Tu as un stylo bleu? Coline a une trousse verte. Nous avons des cahiers noirs. Madame a des classeurs blancs.

Adjectives must agree with the noun it modifies in gender and number. Remember… EQUALITY! Adjectives must agree with the noun it modifies in gender and number.

Now, translate! Marc and Luc have green backpacks. Mr. LeDuc does not have a red pen. They have the blue books. I need the red book. Do you have the orange ruler? Colette does not have the blue binder. He has a black pencil case.

1. Marc et Luc ont les sacs à dos verts. 2. M 1. Marc et Luc ont les sacs à dos verts. 2. M. LeDuc n’a pas de stylo rouge. 3. Ils ont les livres bleus. 4. Il me faut un livre rouge. 5. As-tu une règle orange? 6. Colette n’a pas de classeur bleu. 7. Il a une trousse noire.

One final note… This one concept, for me, was the hardest thing I had to learn in French! But, don’t give up! If you follow the steps you will get it and if you get it now you won’t have to relearn it when the concept of AGREEMENT reappears. And, trust me…it reappears frequently! So BON COURAGE! Now, go forth and make your adjectives agree!