Chapitre 2 — Les gens et les choses

How French works here

The little word in front: un, une, le, la, les

Every French noun has a gender. A table is feminine. A book is masculine. There’s no logic behind it, so don’t go looking for one. You learn the gender along with the word, every single time. That’s the reason we store a noun with its little word, never on its own.

There are two sets of these words.

When it’s one of many, not a specific one, use un (masculine) or une (feminine). This is like “a.”

When it’s the specific one, or the idea in general, use le (masculine), la (feminine), or les (plural, for both). This is like “the.”

le and la both shrink to l’ in front of a vowel: l’ami, l’appartement.

You won’t always know the gender. Word endings give it away more often than you’d expect. Endings like -tion, -té, -ette lean feminine: la nation, la liberté. Endings like -age, -ment, -eau lean masculine: le fromage, le moment, le bureau. These are tendencies, not laws. They’ll still save you a lot of guesses.

Regular verbs: the -er group

Most French verbs end in -er, and they all run the same way. Learn the pattern once and you’ve got hundreds of verbs.

Take parler (to speak). Drop the -er. You’re left with the stem parl-. Now add the endings:

Here’s a gift: parle, parles, and parlent all sound exactly the same out loud. Only nous and vous sound different. Four of the six forms are the same to your ear.

Verbs that follow this exact pattern: travailler (to work), habiter (to live), regarder (to look, to watch), aimer (to like, to love), écouter (to listen), manger (to eat), chercher (to look for). One pattern, and your sentences multiply.

Describing: adjectives

Two things to get right. The shape, and the spot.

Shape. An adjective changes to match its noun. Feminine usually adds -e. Plural usually adds -s.

If the adjective already ends in -e (jeune, sympa), it doesn’t change for the feminine: un homme jeune, une femme jeune. A few shift in their own way, so learn them as pairs: gentil → gentille, beau → belle, vieux → vieille.

Spot. Most adjectives go after the noun.

A small, common set goes before the noun. They’re the short ones, about size, age, looks, and quality: grand, petit, beau, jeune, vieux, bon, nouveau.

Saying no: ne… pas

French wraps the verb in two pieces. ne goes before, pas goes after.

ne shrinks to n’ in front of a vowel: Je n’aime pas le café.