Question

French Tutorial: Indefinite & Definite Articles

Answer 1

Disclaimer: I am not a native French-speaker, just a francophile and aspiring polyglot.

Answer 2

\({\bf{Definite~Articles:}}\) (equivalent to "the" in English)

note that nouns are gendered in French

masculine: le (singular) & les (plural)
feminine: la (singular) & las (plural)
before a vowel sound, or a h muet (mute h): l' (singular) & les (plural)

Examples:
masculine: le chat (the cat), le garçon (the boy), le cours (the class)
feminine: la banque (the bank), la femme (the woman), la table (the table)
before a vowel sound/h muet: l'ami (the friend), l'enfant (the child), l'histoire (the history/story)

le ami, le enfant, etc. are wrong, as these nouns begin with vowel sounds

\({\bf{Gender:}}\)

there are no hard-and-fast rules regarding the gendering of nouns; however, here are some guidelines to keep in mind:

- certain endings are often masculine (-eau, -isme, -ment)
- certain endings are often feminine (ie, ion, té, ude, ure)
- some nouns have gendered forms that are spelled differently: ex: ami vs amie (male vs. female friend)
- some nouns are constant in gender even if the subject may be gendered differently. ex: l'auteur is a masculine noun meaning "author" and keeps the masculine form even when referring to a female author.
- some nouns change articles, but not spelling, when the gender of the subject changes. ex: le journaliste vs la journaliste (male vs. female journalist)

Answer 3

\({\bf{Indefinite~Articles:}}\) (equivalent to a/an/some*)

masculine: un (singular) & des (plural)
feminine: une (singular) & des (plural)

note that the plural form is the same for both masc. and fem. nouns

* ("some" isn't a perfect translation, as you'll learn later. just think of "des" as the plural indefinite pronoun)

Examples:
- un tourist --> des touristes (tourists)
- une recette --> des recettes (recipes/receipts)

\({\bf{Plural~Nouns:}}\)
- just like in English, it is typical for plurals to be created by appending an -s to the end of the noun. and just like in English, there are irregular plurals.
- nouns ending in -s, -z, and -z typically do not change spelling
ex: un choix --> des choix
- irregular endings:
ex: eau --> eaux
al --> aux
ieu --> ieux
ail --> aux
- in an all-male, or mixed gender group, use plural masc. noun form. in all-female group, use plural fem. noun form

Answer 4

\({\bf{Pronunciation~Notes:}}\)

I will link a pronunciation database at the end of the tutorial to make these notes easier to understand.

- if a plural noun ends in s, the s is typically not pronounced (look up "banques" as an example)
- if a masculine noun ends in d, n, s, or t, these consonants are typically not pronounced (look up "etudiant" as an example)
- for masculine nouns ending in d, n, s, or, t, the feminine form is often made by adding an e to the end. in this case, *do* pronounce the consonant. (look up étudiant vs étudiantes)

- h muet vs. h aspiré: mute h vs. aspirated h

h muet refers to the presence of an h at the beginning of a word. the h is silent, and requires elisions and liaisons. an elision refers to the contraction of two words, indicated by an apostrophe.

ex: le + homme --> l'homme (not le homme). the h in homme is mute, so after the l, go right into the o vowel

a liaison refers to the phonetic connection between two words. normally the s in "les" is silent, but in front of an h muet, the s is pronounced, and it becomes more of a z sound

ex: compare "l'homme" vs "les hommes"

Answer 5

cont:

for an h aspiré, the h behaves more like a consonant. elisions and liasons are *not* done in front of an h aspiré.

ex: les héros (the heroes) has a silent "s" in les, as there is no liaison. the singular form is spelled le héros (NOT l'héros, as there is no elision either.)

why do the two different h sounds exist?

in short, words with h muet are derived from Latin and words with h aspiré are Germanic. Aspirated h-words are often borrowed from other languages. I will post some links in the reference section that can help you learn/remember which h words are aspirated and which ones are mute.

Answer 6

\({\bf{References:}}\)

Rochester, Myrna B. Easy French Step-by-Step, United States, McGraw-Hill Education, 2009, 3-11.

Lawless French, esp. these pages:

https://www.lawlessfrench.com/pronunciation/h-aspire/
https://www.lawlessfrench.com/pronunciation/h-muet/
https://www.lawlessfrench.com/pronunciation/elision/
https://www.lawlessfrench.com/pronunciation/liaisons/

CollinsDictionary for French and English translations

Forvo (https://forvo.com/), a French pronunciation database with samples from native French speakers