Are more French words masculine or feminine?
Most nouns referring to men, boys and male animals are masculine; most nouns referring to women, girls and female animals are feminine. The ending of a French noun often changes depending on whether it refers to a male or a female.
What percentage of French nouns are feminine?
A 2005 study done by Roy Lyster of McGill University shows that “81 percent of feminine nouns and 80 percent of masculine nouns are rule governed, having endings that systematically predict their gender.” Quite simply, this means that if you know which word endings are typically masculine and which are typically …
How many genders French have?
French adjectives therefore have four forms: masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural, and feminine plural.
How do you know the gender of French words?
How Do I Know if a Word is Masculine or Feminine in French? The best place to start when trying to figure out the gender of a French word is by looking at the ending of the word. Words that use the articles le or un are going to be masculine, and words that use the articles la or une are feminine.
What percentage of French is masculine?
The answer here, based on my calculations using the Dicollecte dictionary, is 65.4\% masculine and 34.6\% feminine. In other words, not only are there more masculine words in French, masculine words are also more likely to be used in practice!
What is masculine and feminine in French?
Unlike English, French nouns have a gender (genre): they can be masculine (masculin) or feminine (féminin). Nouns with le or un are masculine, and nouns with la or une are feminine. You should always learn nouns together with their articles to be sure of their gender.
Why does French have masculine and feminine words?
French is derived from Latin, which has masculine, feminine and neuter. Neuter disappeared over time, some of the neuter nouns becoming feminine, others masculine. Latin originated from Proto-Indo-European, which also had the same three genders.
What is the difference between masculine and feminine in French?
Plural nouns will take the masculine plural if the noun is masculine and the feminine plural if the noun is feminine. If it is a collective noun or if a pronoun designates a group of both men and women (nous, vous), the masculine applies. Qualifying adjectives will generally come after the noun: Un garçon blond.
What is the rule for gender in French adjectives?
The rule for gender and number of French adjectives. Generally, the feminine is formed with -e, the masculine or general plural in -s and the feminine plural in -es: ´Since “école” is feminine, the adjecti “maternel” has to agree and becomes “maternelle”.
What are the rules of the French language?
A big mess of random chaos. In truth, there are no rules. Words are either feminine and masculine in French, that’s all. There is no reason, no order. Who decides when words are feminine and masculine in French?
What is a noun in French?
A noun is a word that represents a person, place, or thing, whether concrete (e.g., chair, dog) or abstract (idea, happiness). In French, all nouns have a gender—they are either masculine or feminine. The gender of some nouns makes sense ( homme [man] is masculine, femme [woman] is feminine)…