L'intrus
Odd one out: French noun genders
Problème, système, thème… crème? Find the noun whose gender breaks the pattern in eight rows, and learn the endings that usually predict le or la.
- A2
- 8 rows
- Find the odd one out
- Learn this in the A2 notebook →
In short
Endings give strong clues: -tion, -té, -ure are usually feminine; -ment, -age, -ème usually masculine. But each pattern has traps: l'été and le camion are masculine, la plage and la crème feminine. Learn every noun with its article.
Yellow the idea to rememberBlue French to learn
Tap the word that doesn't belong in each row.
Le livre is masculine; la table, la chaise, la fenêtre are feminine. (La livre exists too: the pound!)
-ème words from Greek are masculine: le problème, le système, le thème. But la crème is feminine.
-age is usually masculine, yet la plage, l'image, la page are feminine. Le fromage follows the rule here.
Most -ée nouns are feminine, but le musée, le lycée, le trophée aren't. L'idée is feminine.
-tion is feminine: la nation, la solution, la question. Le camion (lorry) ends in -ion but not -tion.
-ure is usually feminine. Le murmure (a whisper) is a masculine exception.
-té is feminine: la beauté, la liberté, la santé. L'été (summer) is masculine.
-ment is masculine, but la jument (a mare) is feminine: she's a female horse.
How can you guess a French noun’s gender?
| Ending | Usually | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| -tion, -sion | feminine | le bastion |
| -té | feminine | l'été, le côté |
| -ment | masculine | la jument |
| -age | masculine | la plage, la page, l'image, la cage |
When an article elides (l'image, l'été), the gender is hidden. Check with an adjective: une belle image, un bel été.
- le plagela plage
A key -age exception.
- la problèmele problème
-ème from Greek is masculine.