Semaine 02: mardi Grammaire

Il y a plus d’un âne à la foire qui s’appelle Martin Don’t jump to conclusions.

Introduction to Genre

First…what is a noun? A noun can be a Person Place Thing/ Idea

What is ‘genre’? Genre, or gender, is grammatical designation given to nouns based on whether a noun is considered to be masculin- masculine-or féminin- feminine. All nouns in French are given a genre of either masculin or féminin, but these are not to be taken literally. A person can be masculine or feminine, but inanimate objects and ideas do not have a ‘real’ gender.

How genre is used in French Genre is used with all nouns, therefore this concept is used constantly and requires practice and care to master. Genre can be observed in French definite and indefinite articles (to be explained individually in just a moment)

Les Articles défini Definite Articles Les articles défini- or definite articles- simple mean the word « the » in English. I.e. The book, the cat, the student, the beach… The way in which one would say the word definite article ‘the’ depends on if the noun is masculin or féminin

Les Articles défini Definite Articles Masculin Féminin Le La Exemple: le chat the cat Exemple: la plage the beach

What if the noun is plural? First of all, what does plural mean? Plural means to be more than one in number. The opposite of plural is singular, meaning ‘one’ In English, we normally add an ‘s’ or ‘es’ to the end of the word, for instance: two cats / seven classes / sixty minutes/ ten beaches When you have more than one number of a particular noun there is another way to say the word ‘the’ This type of ‘the’ does not show regard for the genre of the nouns. All that matters here is if the noun is plural.

Les Articles défini Definite Articles PLURIEL (Plural) Les Exemple: les chats les plages the cats the beaches

Les Articles Indéfini Indefinite articles Les articles indéfini, or indefinite articles, a words that can mean ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘one’, or ‘some’ With les articles défini, we were saying ‘the ______’: we wanted a specific thing, not just ‘a cat’, but we wanted the cat. You know when you say to your friends, ‘Hey, let’s go to the mall!’ they know exactly what mall you were referring to. The phrase ‘Hey, let’s go to a mall’ means what mall you want to go to is up for discussion. Make sense?

Les Articles Indéfini Indefinite articles Masculin Féminin Un Une Exemple: un chien a dog Exemple: une pomme an apple

What if the noun is plural? Since we know plural means to be more than one in number, you know that this article indéfini is used with nouns that are plural regardless of the genre assigned to the noun. When you have more than one number of a particular noun, you need to use the word ‘some ’ Special note: We don’t use the word ‘some’ often in English, but in French you must use it. Hint- if you could use the word ‘some’ in English in a phrase then you must use this word in your French translation!

Les Articles indéfini indefinite Articles PLURIEL (Plural) des Exemple: des chiens des pommes some dogs some apples