Nouns: Gender and Number

What is a noun?

A noun is a word that can be the name of a person, an animal, place, thing, event, or an idea. Example: professor, dog, Paris, lamp, marriage, poverty

Masculine / Feminine

Nouns in French have a gender. They can be masculine or feminine. If you’ve studied something like Spanish, German, or even Arabic, you’ll know that gender is very much a thing.

The gender of a word in French can sometimes be identified by its ending. The best place to start with this rule is that most feminine nouns in French end in ‘e’.

YouTube : Understand gender in French

Singular / Plural

As well as being masculine or feminine, a French noun will also be singular or plural.  When a word refers ton one person or thing, it is said to be singular; when it refers to more than one, it is plural.  Here, the French language is very similar to English in that “-s” is a common way of making a noun plural. Note, however, that the s is not pronounced.

Then you have the exceptions, which tend to follow a few guidelines. The noun endings influence how a plural form is constructed:

Most nouns ending in –eau or -eu add an –x in the plural.