شم النسيم Sham El-Nessim

In French, all nouns have a grammatical gender, that is, they are masculine or feminine for the purposes of grammar only.

Most nouns that express entities with gender (people and animals) use both a feminine form and a masculine form, for example, the two words for "actor" in French are acteur (m) and actrice (f).

The nouns that express entities without gender (e.g., objects and abstract concepts) have only one form. This form can be masculine or feminine. For example, la voiture (the car) can only be feminine; le stylo (the pen) can only be masculine.

There are some nouns that express entities with gender for which there is only one form, which is used regardless of the actual gender of the entity, for example, the word for person; personne; is always feminine, even if the person is male, and the word for teacher; professeur; is always masculine even if the teacher is female.

Examples

French Grammar · Basic grammar · audio113 kb Gender of Nouns Genre des Noms
Masculine		Common Endings Used With Masculine Nouns:
le cheval	the horse	-age	le fromage the cheese
le chien	the dog	-r	le professeur the teacher
le livre	the book	-t	le chat the cat
le bruit	the noise	-isme	le capitalisme capitalism
Feminine		Common Endings Used With Feminine Nouns:
la colombe	the dove	-ie	la boulangerie the bakery
la chemise	the shirt	-ion	la nation the nation
la maison	the house	-ite/-ité	la fraternité brotherhood
la liberté	liberty	-nce	la balance the scales
		-nne -mme -lle	la fille the girl
			l'indienne the Indian

^ Professeur can be shortened to prof. While the long form, professeur, is always masculine, even when referring to female teachers, prof can be either masculine or feminine. (le prof - the (male) teacher) (la prof - the (female) teacher)

'^ In this book, the definate article will come before a noun in vocabulary charts. If the definate article is l due to elision, (m) will follow a noun to denote a masculine gender and (f) will follow a noun to denote a feminine gender.

Unfortunately, there are many exceptions in French which can only be learned. There are even words that are spelled the same, but have a different meaning when masculine or feminine; for example, un livre (m) means a book, but une livre (f) means a pound! Some words that appear to be masculine (like la photo, which is actually short for la photographie) are in fact feminine, and vice versa. Then there are some that just don't make sense; la foi is feminine and means a belief, whereas le foie means liver. To help overcome this hurdle which many beginners find very difficult, be sure to learn the genders along with the words.

Definite and Indefinite Articles

The Definite Article

In English, the definite article is always "the".

Unlike English, the definite article is used to talk about something in a general sense, a general statement or feeling about an idea or thing.

In French, the definite article is changed depending on the noun's:

1. Gender
2. Plurality
3. First letter of the word

There are three definite articles and an abbreviation. "Le" is used for masculine nouns, "La" is used for feminine nouns, "Les" is used for plural nouns (both masculine or feminine), and "L' " is used when the noun begins with a vowel or silent "h" (both masculine or feminine). It is similar to english, where "a" changes to "an" before a vowel.

French Grammar · Basic grammar · audio78 kb The Definite Article L'article défini
singular	feminine	la	la fille	the daughter
	masculine	le	le fils	the son
singular, starting with a vowel sound		l'	l'enfant	the child
plural		les	les filles	the daughters
			les fils	the sons
			les enfants	the children

Plurality, Pronunciation, and Exceptions

The plural of most nouns is formed by adding an -s. However, the -s ending is not pronounced. It is the article that tells the listener whether the noun is singular or plural.

^ Fils: Most singular nouns do not end in -s. The -s is added for the plural form of the noun. Fils is one exception. Whenever the singular form of a noun ends in -s, there is no change in the plural form.

le fils the son	les fils the sons	un fils a son	des fils (some) sons
le cours the course	les cours the courses	un cours a course	des cours (some) courses

Secondly, the final consonant is almost always not pronounced unless followed by an -e (or another vowel). Fils (pronounced feece) is also an exception to this rule.

Elision

The definite articles le and la are shortened to l' when they come before a noun that begins with a vowel. When pronounced, the vowel sound is dropped.

• (le) ami - l'ami - lahmee - the (male) friend
• (la) amie - l'amie - lahmee the (female) friend
• (le) élève - l'élève - lay lev - the student

This process, called "elision," also occurs before a silent h.

• (la) heure - l'heure - leur - the hour/the time

The Indefinite Article

In English, the indefinite articles are "a" and "an". "Some" is used as a plural article in English.

Again, indefinite articles in French take different forms depending on gender and plurality. The articles "Un" and "une" literally mean "one" in French.

French Grammar · Basic grammar · audio55 kb The Indefinite Article L'article indéfini
singular	feminine	une	oon	une fille	a daughter
	masculine	un	uh	un fils	a son
plural		des	day	des filles	some daughters
				des fils1	some sons

¹"des fils" does mean "some sons" but is an homograph: it can also mean "some threads" (when pronounced like "fill")

Liaison

Remember that the last consonant of a word is typically not pronounced unless followed by a vowel. Well when a word ending in a consonant is followed by a word beginning with a vowel sound, the consonant often becomes pronounced. This is a process called liaison. When a vowel goes directly after un, the normally unpronounced n sound becomes pronounced.

• (un) ami - un_nami (uhnahmee) - a (male) friend
• (un) élève - un_nélève (uhnay lev) - a student

Compare the pronunciation to words without liaiison:

• un garçon (uh gairsoh)

Une is unaffected by liaison.

Liaison also occurs with des.

• (des) amis - des_zamis (dayzahmee) - (some) (male) friends
• (des) amies - des_zamies (dayzahmee) - (some) (female) friends

In this book, you will see liaison denoted with _n or _z between two words.

"Some"

Note that des, like les is used in French before plural nouns when no article is used in English. Let's imagine you are looking at photographs in an album. In English, we would say "I am looking at photographs." In French, you cannot say, "Je regarde photographies," you must tell which photographs you are looking at using an article. If you were looking at a set of specific pictures, you would say "Je regarde les photographies." ("I am looking at the photographs.") If you were just flipping through the album, looking at nothing in particular, you would say, "Je regarde des photographies." ("I am looking at some photographs.")

People

French Vocabulary · Basic grammar · audio679 kb People Les personnes
la personne	person	pehr son
Gender and Age
l'homme (m)	man	ohm
la femme	woman	fehm
le garçon	boy	gehrsoh
la fille	girl	fee
la fillette	little girl	fee let
Friends
l'ami (m) le copain	male friend	ahmee co pahn
l'amie (f) la copine	female friend	ahmee co peen

Expressions

Qu'est-ce que c'est?

To say What is it? or What is that? in French, Qu'est-ce que c'est? (pronounced kehss keuh say) is used.

• Qu'est-ce que c'est? - What is it?

Literally, Qu'est-ce que c'est? translates to What is it that it is? You will be using Qu'est-ce que...? often to say What...? at the beginning of sentences.

To respond to this question, you say C'est un(e) [nom]., meaning It is a [noun].

• C'est un livre. - It's a book.
• C'est un chien. - It's a dog.

Remember that the indefinate article (un or une) must agree with the noun it modifies.

• C'est une chemise. - It's a shirt.

Il y a...

Il y a (pronounced eel ee ah) is used to say there is (or there's) and there are.

• Il y a une pomme. - There is an apple.

The phrase is used for both singular and plural nouns. Unlike in English (is => are), il y a does not change form.

• Il y a des pommes. - There are (some) apples.

The -s at the end of the most plural of most nouns tells you that the phrase is there are instead of there is. In spoken French, when both the singular and plural forms almost always sound the same, the article (and perhaps other adjectives modifying the noun) is used to distinguish between singular and plural versions.

You will soon learn that a is the present third person singular form of avoir, the verb meaing to have, and that y is a pronoun meaning there. The phrase il y a, then, literally translates to he has there. You will see this phrase used in all French tenses. It is important to remember that verb stays as a form of be and not have.

Like in English, il y a... is not often used to point out an object in front of you. To say that, voici and voilà are used.

Voici et Voilà

Voici... translates to here is... and here are. Similarly, voilà means there is and there are. They are used to point out objects in front of you or in exclamatory sentences.