Before verbs and tenses, French sentences are built from nouns and adjectives that must agree. This lesson lays the foundation: gender and plurals, the articles le / la / les and un / une / des, the partitive du / de la / des, adjective agreement and position, and the possessives mon / ma / mes. These blocks sit under the vocabulary of every Edexcel theme — your personal world and neighbourhood, lifestyle & wellbeing, media & technology, studying & your future, and travel & tourism.
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French nouns are either masculine or feminine. The word for "the" tells you which: le for masculine, la for feminine, and l' before a vowel:
Learn the gender with the noun. There is no reliable rule, so store le livre and la maison as whole units — the article is part of the word.
In the plural, both le and la become les. Most nouns just add -s (which is silent). A few endings behave differently:
| singular | plural |
|---|---|
| le chat (add -s) | les chats |
| le cheval (-al → -aux) | les chevaux |
| l'animal (-al → -aux) | les animaux |
| le château (-eau → -eaux) | les châteaux |
Watch out: the -s is silent, so you never hear the plural on the noun — you hear it on les instead. And nouns ending -al or -eau break the rule: cheval → chevaux, château → châteaux.
Where English says "a" or "an", French uses un (masculine) or une (feminine). In the plural it becomes des ("some"):
| gender | form |
|---|---|
| masculine | un livre — a book |
| feminine | une maison — a house |
| plural | des livres — some books |
English drops "some" — French does not. "I have books" is j'ai des livres, never j'ai livres. The little word des is compulsory.
When you mean some or any of something (often food), French uses the partitive article. It matches the gender of the noun:
| gender | "some / any" |
|---|---|
| masculine | du pain — some bread |
| feminine | de la viande — some meat |
| before a vowel | de l'eau — some water |
| plural | des pommes — some apples |
Two big traps: after a negative, the partitive collapses to just de — je ne mange pas de viande, never pas du viande. And after a quantity word it is also de: beaucoup de pain (lots of bread).
A French adjective must agree with its noun: add -e for feminine, -s for plural (both -es for feminine plural). Adjectives already ending in -e (like rouge) do not change in the feminine:
| pattern | masculine → feminine |
|---|---|
| most: add -e | petit → petite |
| ends -e: no change | rouge → rouge |
| -eux → -euse | heureux → heureuse |
| -f → -ve | sportif → sportive |
| -er → -ère | cher → chère |
Doublers and irregulars: bon → bonne, gros → grosse, gentil → gentille; and learn these by heart — beau → belle, nouveau → nouvelle, vieux → vieille, blanc → blanche, long → longue.
Most French adjectives go after the noun — the opposite of English: une maison blanche (a white house). But a small set of very common ones go before. Remember them with BAGS:
Default is after. Only BAGS adjectives (beauty, age, goodness, size) jump in front. Colours, nationalities and most descriptions stay behind the noun: une maison blanche.
Tap a masculine adjective on the left, then tap its feminine form on the right.
Decide whether each adjective goes before or after the noun.
Two situations flatten the whole partitive family (du / de la / de l' / des) down to a plain de:
Never write je ne mange pas du viande. After ne…pas the article is simply de: je ne mange pas de viande.
"My", "your", "his/her" also agree with the noun owned (not the owner). Each has a masculine, feminine and plural form:
| meaning | m · f · pl |
|---|---|
| my | mon · ma · mes |
| your (tu) | ton · ta · tes |
| his / her | son · sa · ses |
| our | notre · notre · nos |
| your (vous) | votre · votre · vos |
| their | leur · leur · leurs |
Two quirks: before a vowel, ma switches to mon for sound — mon amie (my female friend), not ma amie. And son / sa / ses means his OR her — the form follows the noun, so son livre can be "his book" or "her book".
You have now met all three sets of little words that sit in front of a noun. Keep them straight:
Golden habit: learn every noun with its article and gender, and let your adjectives copy that gender. Do that and agreement becomes automatic.
Gender: every noun is le (m) or la (f); l' before a vowel; plural les. Learn the article with the noun.
Plurals: add silent -s; -al → -aux (cheval → chevaux); -eau → -eaux (château → châteaux).
Articles: definite le/la/les · indefinite un/une/des · partitive du/de la/de l'/des — but de after a negative or a quantity.
Agreement: +e feminine, +s plural; rouge unchanged; heureux→heureuse, sportif→sportive, cher→chère; irregulars beau/belle, blanc/blanche, vieux/vieille.
Position: most adjectives go after; BAGS (beauty, age, goodness, size) go before — un petit chien.
Possessives: mon/ma/mes … leur/leurs; ma→mon before a vowel; son/sa = his or her.
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Next in the spine: The present-tense system — regular verbs, the boot verbs and the big irregulars. Then lock this in with the Evaluate confidence quiz.