Agreement of Adjectives Unit 1: Lesson 5

Parts of Speech An ADJECTIVE is a word that describes a Noun. A NOUN is a person, place, thing, or idea.

Colors as Adjectives In this unit, we are learning the basics of the language by applying the most simple (and yet most widely-used) grammar rules to simple vocabulary (animals and colors). Colors are used to describe items, even in English: it is a blue jacket, those are red pens – and, as such, are ADJECTIVES. We will therefore be using colors as our ADJECTIVES (things that describe nouns) and animals as our NOUNS (people, places, things, or ideas).

Rule 3 In French, An Adjective must always agree with the Noun it modifies in GENDER (masculine / feminine) & in NUMBER (singular / plural).

Rule 4 In French, An Adjective is given or listed in the MASCULINE, SINGULAR form & It is up to the language user to MODIFY (change) the adjective in order to make it agree with the noun it modifies in GENDER (m/f) and NUMBER (s/pl).

Charting The following chart can be used to help simplify the agreement of adjectives: MasculineFeminine Singular Plural

MS  FS = + E We have already seen how to make something agree with a feminine noun. When we were learning Indefinite Articles, the article “un” was used with Masculine, Singular nouns, whereas the word “une” was used with Feminine, Singular nouns. Therefore, to make agreement from Masculine Singular to Feminine Singular, we will usually add an “e” to the end of the word.

Charting The following chart can be used to help simplify the agreement of adjectives: MasculineFeminine Singular * + e Plural

S  PL = + S We have already seen how to make something in French plural. Unless the noun was irregular, we simply added an “s” to it to make it plural, just like in English. With adjectives, therefore, the same theory applies: unless it is irregular, we simply add “s” to a word to make the word change from its singular form to its plural form. Note: For feminine plural, be sure to add your “e” for feminine BEFORE your “s” for plural!

Charting The following chart can be used to help simplify the agreement of adjectives: MasculineFeminine Singular * + e Plural + s + es

brun, noir, bleu, vert The colors (adjectives) listed above are Regular and follow the rules we just discussed: 1)They are given in the Masculine, Singular form. 2)To make the adjective agree with the noun it modifies, we simply add “e” to agree with a feminine noun and “s” to agree when the noun is plural.

Charting Can you use the chart to Modify (change) the adjective “BLEU” (blue)? MasculineFeminine Singular bleu Plural

Charting If your chart looks like this, then you modified the adjective correctly. Notice how we simply add “s” to bleu in its Masculine Plural Form, add “e” to bleu to make it Feminine Singular, and “es” to bleu to make it Feminine Plural. MasculineFeminine Singular bleu bleue Plural bleusbleues

Charting Can you use the chart to Modify (change) the adjective “VERT” (green)? MasculineFeminine Singular vert Plural

Charting If your chart looks like this, then you modified the adjective correctly. Notice how we simply add “s” to vert in its Masculine Plural Form, add “e” to vert to make it Feminine Singular, and “es” to vert to make it Feminine Plural. MasculineFeminine Singular vertverte Plural vertsvertes

Charting Can you use the chart to Modify (change) the adjective “BRUN” (brown)? MasculineFeminine Singular brun Plural

Charting If your chart looks like this, then you modified the adjective correctly. Notice how we simply add “s” to brun in its Masculine Plural Form, add “e” to brun to make it Feminine Singular, and “es” to brun to make it Feminine Plural. MasculineFeminine Singular brunbrune Plural brunsbrunes

Charting Can you use the chart to Modify (change) the adjective “NOIR” (black)? MasculineFeminine Singular noir Plural

Charting If your chart looks like this, then you modified the adjective correctly. Notice how we simply add “s” to noir in its Masculine Plural Form, add “e” to noir to make it Feminine Singular, and “es” to noir to make it Feminine Plural. MasculineFeminine Singular noirnoire Plural noirsnoires

Rule 1 Although you are learning these rules “out-of- order”, this is perhaps the most important rule you can memorize in French: In French, There is always an exception to every rule. So, whenever you “happen” upon any exception, MEMORIZE it as an exception to the rule.

Exceptions Although we will generally add “e” for feminine singular, “s” for masculine plural, and “es” for feminine plural, there are exceptions to this practice.

Exception 1: “s” Question: What do we do if the adjective already ends in “s” in the masculine, singular form, like “gris”? Do we add a second “s” to make it agree in the masculine plural form?

Exception 1: “s” Answer: Remember when we were making Nouns plural and there were certain nouns (ours, souris, etc) which already ended in ‘s’? – We left them alone. We did not do anything to the end of those nouns. When this happens to an ADJECTIVE, you do NOTHING when changing the adjective from masculine singular to masculine plural, but you must still change the adjective to make it agree with the feminine singular and feminine plural forms.

Charting Can you use the chart to Modify (change) the adjective “GRIS” (gray)? MasculineFeminine Singular gris Plural

Charting If your chart looks like this, then you modified the adjective correctly. Notice how we do nothing to gris in its Masculine Plural Form, add “e” to gris to make it Feminine Singular, and “es” to gris to make it Feminine Plural. MasculineFeminine Singular grisgrise Plural grisgrises

Exception 2: “e” Question: What do we do if the adjective already ends in “e” in the masculine, singular form, like “rose”? Do we add an extra “e” to change the adjective in order to make it agree with the feminine singular and plural forms?

Exception 2: “e” Answer: When a word already ends in the letter you need to add and there are no accents over any of those letters, then you do NOT have to add that letter again to the end of the word. In the case of adjective such as “rose”, “rouge”, “jaune”, et “orange”, each adjective already ends in the letter “e” and there is no accent over the letter “e”; therefore, you do NOTHING to the end of the adjective to make it agree with the feminine singular form, but you still have to add “s” to make it agree in the plural forms.

Charting Can you use the chart to Modify (change) the adjective “ROSE” (pink)? MasculineFeminine Singular rose Plural

Charting If your chart looks like this, then you modified the adjective correctly. Notice how we do nothing to rose in its Feminine Singular form, add “s” to rose to make it Mascluine Plural, and “s” to rose to make it Feminine Plural. MasculineFeminine Singular roserose Plural rosesroses

Charting Can you use the chart to Modify (change) the adjective “JAUNE” (yellow)? MasculineFeminine Singular jaune Plural

Charting If your chart looks like this, then you modified the adjective correctly. Notice how we do nothing to jaune in its Feminine Singular form, add “s” to jaune to make it Mascluine Plural, and “s” to jaune to make it Feminine Plural. MasculineFeminine Singular jaunejaune Plural jaunesjaunes

Charting Can you use the chart to Modify (change) the adjective “ROUGE” (red)? MasculineFeminine Singular rouge Plural

Charting If your chart looks like this, then you modified the adjective correctly. Notice how we do nothing to rouge in its Feminine Singular form, add “s” to rouge to make it Mascluine Plural, and “s” to rouge to make it Feminine Plural. MasculineFeminine Singular rougerouge Plural rougesrouges

Charting Can you use the chart to Modify (change) the adjective “ORANGE” (orange)? MasculineFeminine Singular orange Plural

Charting If your chart looks like this, then you modified the adjective correctly. Notice how we do nothing to orange in its Feminine Singular form, add “s” to orange to make it Mascluine Plural, and “s” to orange to make it Feminine Plural. MasculineFeminine Singular orangeorange Plural orangesoranges

Exception 3 Question: But what about the other colors that we have not discussed? – Purple, White, and the other word for Brown: Marron?

Exception 3 Answer: Sometimes a word is entirely different than any rule or has to be discussed separately.

Blanc In the case of adjectives that end in “-anc”, the feminine form is different. Instead of simply adding “e” to the end of the adjective, we must add “he”.

Charting Can you use the chart to Modify (change) the adjective “BLANC” (white)? MasculineFeminine Singular blanc Plural

Charting If your chart looks like this, then you modified the adjective correctly. Notice how we simply add “s” to the adjective in the Masculine Plural form, add “he” in the Feminine Singular Form, and add “hes” in the Feminine Plural Form. MasculineFeminine Singular blancblanche Plural blancsblanches

Violet & Maron In the case of adjectives that end in “-et” and “-on”, the feminine form is different. Instead of simply adding “e” to the end of the adjective, we must double the consonant (the ‘t’ or the ‘n’) and then add “e”.

Charting Can you use the chart to Modify (change) the adjective “VIOLET” (purple)? MasculineFeminine Singular violet Plural

Charting If your chart looks like this, then you modified the adjective correctly. Notice how we simply add “s” to the Masculine Plural form, double our “t” and add “e” to Feminine Singular form, and add “s” to the Feminine Singular form to make it Plural. MasculineFeminine Singular violetviolette Plural violetsviolettes

Charting Can you use the chart to Modify (change) the adjective “MARON” (brown)? MasculineFeminine Singular maron Plural

Charting If your chart looks like this, then you modified the adjective correctly. Notice how we simply add “s” to the Masculine Plural form, double our “n” and add “e” to Feminine Singular form, and add “s” to the Feminine Singular form to make it Plural. MasculineFeminine Singular maronmaronne Plural maronsmaronnes