Guessing the gender of a noun

○ First method : spotting the determiner

The simplest way to know the gender of a noun is to identify the determiner that accompanies it.

Remember : If you can't remember the gender of the french determiners, here is a summary table.

Problem : This technic doesn't work in the following cases :

• If the noun is at plural form, determiners don't allow to guess the gender.

• If the noun begins with a vowel, the definite article doesn't show the gender because of the  elision (l') and the possessive article doesn't show the gender anymore because of the euphonic adaptation (mon is used before a feminine noun beginning with a vowel).

○ Second method : Does the noun end with an -e ? 

Around 70% of the nouns ending with an -e are feminine. Therefore, it is a good cloue to find out the gender of the noun.

Most of the feminine words coming from masculine nouns take an -e.

○ Third method : spotting the terminations

If most of the feminine words end with an -e, there are several terminations that help to know if the noun is feminine or masculine.

-age → masculine

-aison → feminine

-tion → feminine