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Masculine and feminine forms in French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Spinchäeb Ape Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4472 days ago 146 posts - 180 votes  Speaks: English*, German | Message 1 of 16 06 October 2012 at 12:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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I was looking over a web site about French grammar. I’m still very, very new to the language, having studied it only a matter of weeks. I therefore was not just studying the grammar; I was taking any word or phrase I didn’t know from their examples and putting it into my flash card program. I came across this:
Je suis heureuse (f). I believe that (f) means it’s the feminine form. The site did not show a masculine form. However, I translated I am happy at Google Translate and got this: Je suis heureux I’m guessing that’s the masculine form. My educated guess is you say, “Je suis heureuse” if you’re a woman, but you say, “Je suis heureux” if you’re a man. Am I correct or do these differences mean something else? Is this a common characteristic of French where women and men say the same thing slightly differently? Edited by Fasulye on 10 October 2012 at 6:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7017 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 16 06 October 2012 at 1:12am | IP Logged | |||||
I will, of course, defer to a native speaker but, as far as I know the answer is yes to the first part and no to the second.
Not just in French, but in lots of other languages with gender "issues". 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5569 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 3 of 16 06 October 2012 at 5:47am | IP Logged | |||||
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Yes, French adjectives have different forms depending on the gender of the object they're referring to. You may or may not know by now that every noun in French has one of two genders: masculine or feminine. For inanimate objects, you just have to memorize the gender of each word (though there are a few shortcuts for words with certain endings). For people, of course you just use the gender of the person. So, when referring to a male you say "heureux" and when referring to a female you say "heureuse".
For most adjectives, turning a masculine adjective into a feminine adjective involves adding an E, unless the adjective already ends with E, in which case you leave it alone. Sometimes it affects the pronunciation, sometimes it doesn't. If the adjective ends with G, a silent U is needed before the E to keep the G from becoming soft. fort (m) → forte (f) - 'strong' français (m) → française (f) - 'French' vrai (m) → vraie (f) - 'true' parlé (m) → parlée (f) - 'spoken' juste (m) → juste (f) - 'just, fair, correct' long (m) → longue (f) - 'long' However, this does not apply to "heureux", because there are exceptions to the rule. Adjectives that end with "-eux" or "-eur" change to "-euse", "-el" becomes "-elle", "-on" becomes "-onne", and "-f" becomes "-ve". sérieux (m) → sérieuse (f) - 'serious' prometteur (m) → prometteuse (f) - 'promising' personnel (m) → personnelle (f) - 'personal' mignon (m) → mignonne (f) - 'cute' naïf (m) → naïve (f) - 'naïve' And then there are a handful of irregular adjectives that you just have to memorize, such as: beau (m) → belle (f) - 'beautiful' blanc (m) → blanche (f) - 'white' favori (m) → favorite (f) - 'favorite' fou (m) → folle (f) - 'crazy' mou (m) → molle (f) - 'soft' nouveau (m) → nouvelle (f) - 'new' vieux (m) → vieille (f) - 'old' Keep in mind that adjectives need to agree with nouns not only by gender but by number too. When referring to more than one of something, you need to use a plural adjective. These are fairly straightforward. You just add an S, except you write "-aux" instead of "-aus" or "-als" (adjectives that end in S or X already do not change). fort, forte → forts, fortes français, française → français, françaises sérieux, sérieuse → sérieux, sérieuses nouveau, nouvelle → nouveaux, nouvelles original, originale → originaux, originales Edited by Levi on 06 October 2012 at 5:57am 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5393 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 4 of 16 06 October 2012 at 6:26am | IP Logged | |||||
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And just to complicate things, adjectives that end in vowel sounds like beau, nouveau,
and vieux have a special form when qualifying a noun that starts with a vowel sound (pronounced the same way as the feminine form): un vieil homme, un bel ami, un nouvel appartement (and of course a female friend would be une amie). Adjectives that are formed from the past participal will simply have an extra "e" at the end (and/or "s" if plural): woman: Je suis fatiguée. man: Je suis fatigué. Ils sont fatigués. Elles sont fatiguées. Some professions will have a male form and a female form (un boulanger, une boulangère, un acteur, une actrice) while others won't (un boucher). Though sometimes these days people will say "une professeur" or even "une professeure" but this last spelling is rare, even rarer is "une doctoresse". Even more complicated, the past participal will also agree in gender and number with either the subject (for être verbs, except for in certain cases with reflexive verbs that also take a direct object) and a preceeding direct object (for avoir verbs). This is where French can get really complicated but don't stress about it until you need to stress about writing correctly (in a few cases it leads to a difference in pronunciation but not normally): A woman: J'y suis allée. (verbs that take être agree with the subject, in this case a woman) A man: J'y suis allé. Je me suis lavé les mains. (where it gets really confusing, with être in a reflexsive verb with object, it no longer agrees). J'ai acheté une voiture. (the direct object is after the past participle so no agreement) La voiture que j'ai achetée... (the direct object is in front of the past participle so there is agreement). If this doesn't make sense yet don't stress about it, this is one of the hardest things in French and advanced and even native speakers will fail to make the proper agreements all the time which is why the French have dictation competitions. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Spinchäeb Ape Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4472 days ago 146 posts - 180 votes Speaks: English*, German | Message 5 of 16 06 October 2012 at 9:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thank you very much for both your explanations. It clears up some confusion for me. In Rosetta Stone, I kept seeing "fatigué" and "fatiguée" and they never explained the difference, instead expecting you to intuitively figure it out. That's more proof that RS, while a good tool, is not a complete learning system. That's why I'm also using web sites and a book with rational explanations. I'm also using Pimsleur. They do a good job explaining and reinforcing what you've learned, but they use audio only. I was surprised there were no transcripts of the expressions that you learn. If you used Pimsleur only, you might develop some speaking skill, but be unable to write well.
In marketing, they make these systems look like the end all and be all of language learning when in reality they're helpful tools, but they don't do everything. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Spinchäeb Ape Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4472 days ago 146 posts - 180 votes Speaks: English*, German | Message 6 of 16 06 October 2012 at 9:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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PS: I have saved both your explanations in my notes so that I can study from them. Thank you again.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5534 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 16 06 October 2012 at 11:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Two other resources you might like:
* Essential French Grammar: Short, sweet, covers all the basics. $6 * about.french.com: Lots of good reference material. Free. There's no need to memorize any of this stuff, but if you're feeling puzzled, either of these will help you clear things up. I especially like Essential French Grammar because it covers 80% of what you need to know up through the intermediate levels without getting into the complicated details. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5393 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 8 of 16 07 October 2012 at 12:17am | IP Logged | |||||
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Yeah, RS is notorious for their lack of explanation. Though it could be a good idea to
work on audio only with a language like French at first as it could help solidify your pronunciation and accent. Since I started in school I saw it written down from the beginning and did hardly any listening. I wonder sometimes how my accent would be if I started from audio only. Though I never had the chronic problem that some others did of pronouncing "ils parlent" with the final "s" and "ent" so seeing it written didn't "spoil" me in that sense. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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