quick question,

im starting to teach myself french, um when do you use the masculine/feminie verson of a word?

Im learning numbers at the mo and am curious why the french for first has a masc and fem meaning,

Reply 1

generalebriety

But note that most nouns are just masculine or feminine without apparent explanation. Un crayon = a pencil, une gomme = a rubber. The words "une crayon" and "un gomme" don't exist, hence are wrong.

Reply 2

mooncheese89

Yup, ^^^ as above, there's no real reason, and not many tricks for remembering which words are masc and which are fem. You just gotta learn them..

Although:

Usually, words that end in -ment, -et, -isme are masculine, and ones that end in -tion, -sion, -ance, -ense are feminine.

I didn't scratch the surface there, there are plenty more but I can't remember them, and of course there are exceptions.

But when you get more used to learning whether things are masc/fem its a good idea to start looking at tricks like that to help you out.

Be thankful it's not German you're learning, that has 3 genders...masculine, feminine, and neutral! :P

Reply 3

generalebriety

mooncheese89

Be thankful it's not German you're learning, that has 3 genders...masculine, feminine, and neutral! :P

German makes sense though. Is it un âge or une âge? I certainly don't know, but what I do know just by listening to the sound of the word is that it's not die Alter or der Alter. :p:

Reply 4

generalebriety

wesetters

it is in fact neither :p:

I's un age :wink:

It's an exception to the rule (I'm sure german has exceptions).

Single syllable -age words are usually feminine. With more than one syllable, they will generally be masculine.

There is a useful page here :http://french.about.com/library/weekly/bl-gender-m.htm

Some words are a particular gender because of meaning, eg. un homme.

German has exceptions, yes, but words just sound a certain gender to me in German. For example, das Vorlesung, or das See, or even die Fall, all sound completely wrong to me.

Reply 5

mooncheese89

Well I guess that's true, that things can just *sound* wrong or right :biggrin:

which is useful! You have to get to know a language well first though to be able to just naturally be able to identify :smile:

Reply 6

quintsy

I find in German it's easier to use logic more often than rules- mainly because I don't have neither the capacity in my mind to store all of the endings; nor can my mind access the information that quickly if I'm just having a conversation with one of my relatives or someone. Think of the brain as a computer if you will :biggrin:

- my hard disk is pretty nearing full, so Windows is now running slowly due to not having enough room for the SWAP file; and my processor speed was never that good in the first place.

*Has been doing too much IT coursework for her own good*

Anywho! Digressing slightly there.. basically I usually go for what sounds right in German. The same applies for French generally, but I also go for what I know- i.e. problème for some absurd reason to me sounds feminine, but I know from using it before that it's un, and I've used it so much. (".. mais zut alors! J'avais un problème avec ma voiture- le pneu était crevé.."- and other assorted fun GCSE oral tasks..)

The same applies for other components too, as they can just sound right or wrong- like savoir versus connaître; somehow you just feel that "je les sais" sounds wrong when you're referring to people.

Reply 7

generalebriety

suuuuuuseh

You make a good point though. Especially when it's a nice complicated German sentence with lots of KII, subordinating conjunctions and whatnot that English doesn't really seem to have, you have verbs flying all over the place, little words like "mal", "doch", "schon" coming to your lips which you hadn't planned, various adjective/noun/verb endings all over the place... I find thinking about it a lot harder than just opening my mouth and letting instinct do the talking.

suuuuuuseh

Anywho! Digressing slightly there.. basically I usually go for what sounds right in German. The same applies for French generally, but I also go for what I know- i.e. problème for some absurd reason to me sounds feminine, but I know from using it before that it's un, and I've used it so much.

Same, with the same word. :confused:

suuuuuuseh

The same applies for other components too, as they can just sound right or wrong- like savoir versus connaître; somehow you just feel that "je les sais" sounds wrong when you're referring to people.

Indeed. But then I would have a tendency to say "ich kenne seinen Namen" / "je connais son nom", and the only reason I can think of is because his name is an object and not a fact... but apparently "ich weiß seinen Namen" / "je sais son nom" works too. The French sounds passable; the German just sounds ludicrous to me. It sounds like saying "ich weiß dich", to me. But then kenne is fine too apparently, so I'm alright. :p: