Goal
You’ll be able to correctly identify whether a French noun is masculine or feminine, and know the genuinely useful patterns to rely on, along with important exceptions that trip up beginners.
Learn
Every French noun has a grammatical gender — masculine or feminine — even for objects with no actual biological gender at all. This affects articles, adjective agreement, and pronoun choices throughout the entire language, making it a genuinely foundational concept.
Unlike Spanish, French gender is often genuinely less predictable from a noun’s ending alone, but some useful patterns exist: nouns ending in -tion, -sion, and -té are consistently feminine: la nation, la télévision, la liberté. Nouns ending in -ment and -eau are typically masculine: le gouvernement, le bureau.
Genuine exceptions and unpredictable cases exist widely, and need to be memorized alongside the noun itself, not derived from a rule: la voiture (the car) is feminine, le problème (the problem) is masculine, despite its -e ending which might suggest feminine by loose intuition. A genuinely important habit: always learn a French noun together with its article (le or la), not the bare noun alone, since the gender is essentially part of the word itself.
Decision Task
You encounter the word le problème (the problem) for the first time. Before reading on: based purely on its ending in -e, would you guess this word is masculine or feminine, and is that guess correct?
Show Answer
Based purely on the -e ending, you might loosely guess feminine, since many feminine French nouns end in -e. But problème is actually masculine (le problème) — this is exactly why French gender is often genuinely less predictable than Spanish, and why learning each noun together with its article matters so much.
Common Mistake
Assuming French noun gender can be reliably predicted from spelling patterns the way Spanish -o/-a endings often can. French gender is genuinely less predictable overall — while some patterns exist (like -tion being consistently feminine), many common nouns don’t follow any obvious pattern, making the “learn noun plus article together” habit genuinely essential, not optional.
Practice Questions
1. Is la nation (the nation) masculine or feminine, and what pattern does its ending follow?
Show Answer
Feminine — nouns ending in -tion are consistently feminine.
2. Is le bureau (the office/desk) masculine or feminine, and what pattern does its ending follow?
Show Answer
Masculine — nouns ending in -eau are typically masculine.
3. Is la voiture (the car) masculine or feminine?
Show Answer
Feminine.
4. Why is the habit of learning a French noun together with its article (le or la) described as genuinely essential, not just helpful?
Show Answer
French gender is often genuinely unpredictable from spelling alone, unlike Spanish’s more reliable -o/-a pattern, making the article essentially part of the word itself that must be memorized together with it.
5. True or False: French noun gender can generally be reliably predicted from a noun’s ending, similar to Spanish.
Show Answer
False — French gender is genuinely less predictable overall than Spanish, with many common exceptions.
Try It Yourself
Without looking back, guess the likely gender of la liberté (freedom) based on its ending, then confirm using this lesson’s pattern for -té endings.
Show Answer
Feminine — la liberté. Nouns ending in -té are consistently feminine, matching this lesson’s pattern.
Quick Check
1. What gender do nouns ending in -tion typically have?
Show Answer
Feminine.
2. What gender do nouns ending in -eau typically have?
Show Answer
Masculine.
3. What gender do nouns ending in -té typically have?
Show Answer
Feminine.
4. Is le problème masculine or feminine, despite its -e ending?
Show Answer
Masculine — a genuine exception to loose -e intuition.
5. Why should you always learn a French noun together with its article?
Show Answer
Because gender is often genuinely unpredictable from spelling alone, making the article essentially part of the word to memorize.