How can you tell a French Noun’s Gender?

All French nouns are either Feminine or Masculine. But how can you tell? Click through to learn the gender of 13,000 nouns within minutes.

Making sense of the French nouns’ gender is one of the hardest parts of learning French, especially as an English speaker because you don’t have gendered nouns in your own language. You can’t speak French correctly if you don’t know the nouns’ genders, because these will affect the other words in the sentence: articles, adjectives and sometimes even verbs.

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So, how do you know a noun’s gender?

The easiest way is to learn the noun’s article (le, la / un, une) alongside the noun when you learn it the first time. If you use a vocabulary notebook or flashcard system, like I recommend, you need to write the articles alongside the nouns in your notebook so you learn them together.

I recommend doing it from the start. If you don’t, you risk being stuck down the line and having to re-learn all those nouns, instead of learning new things. This is frustrating and time consuming, so if you can avoid it, great!
But what if you’re already there? What if you are now an intermediate student, and you haven’t learned from the start.

Good news! For over 13,000 nouns, you can guess the gender thanks to the ending!

I have specifically designed this video so that it is like a game. I will show you an ending and you can guess if it is masculine or feminine. Please keep track of how many you get right and leave a comment for me telling me your score.

Please don’t try to learn them all at once, it simply is not possible. Return to this video and play the game again, and post your score under your original comment each time so you can track your progress.

If you like this video, click here to subscribe to my YouTube channel. I make new videos regularly so you can learn all about French language & culture and how you too can become a French speaker.

Noun endings discussed in this video:

Masculine

é (le blé, le pré)

eur, teur (le chanteur)

ien (le chien)

ier, er (le cahier)

on (le patron)

age (le garage)

al (le cheval)

eau (le bateau)

ment (le document)

et (le ticket)

isme (le tourisme)

asme (le fantasme)

in (le cousin)

oir (le soir)

ail (le travail)

ing (le shampoing)

Feminine

té (la liberté)

euse (la danseuse)

trice (la traductrice)

ienne (la chienne)

iére, ére (la bouchére)

onne (la baronne)

ade (la pommade)

ance, ence (l’absence)

eresse (la chasseresse)

ée (la soirée)

elle (la sentinelle)

ette (la baguette)

ie (la librairie)

ine (la cousine)

ise (la surprise)

aille (la trouvaille)

ture (la voiture)

aison (la maison)

tion (la nation)

Is this helpful?

If so, join my Telegram channel. It’s free and you’ll get exclusive content that you can’t get anywhere else.

One of your free gifts is the slides I used in this video. It’s perfect to review your gendered endings rapidly and commit them to memory.

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Your next steps

If you like this way of learning French, you will love to learn with me as a student or client. Please check out:

My 1-1 coaching program, The French Transformation, if you need to improve your French fast.
My group program, The French Fluency Accelerator, if you’d like to join a community of students from all over the world. We have weekly practice calls together and the best online video library to learn French.

Pro tip: you don’t need to choose!

All my 1-1 clients are invited to join the French Accelerator free of charge.

Feel free to book a call with me now to discuss options.

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About the Authors

Two portraits of Angel Pretot and Linda Unger in circle shaped images. They are smiling and looking at the camera.

Angel Pretot is a French learning coach. He works online with English speakers from all over the world, helping them learn French fast and become fluent.
You can work with him, in his one-on-one program the French Transformation, or join a global community of French learners in his group program the French Fluency Accelerator.

Linda Unger is an avid French Learner who dreams of having a stone house in Bretagne someday. She also loves writing, knitting and dogs. She joined the French Fluency team as a writer in 2020.