Expert: Julie Foss - 8/27/2006

Question
I have never been able to grasp foreign languages because of the whole masculine - feminine thing.
I am led to believe that everyday objects are given masculine or feminine qualities which alters the way you pronounce different things.
My question is, what determines the masculinity or femininity of an inanimate object, since things like tables and chairs have no genitalia, I cannot see why certain things are labelled as either masculine or feminine.

Answer
Hi Lee,
Yeah, the masculine/feminine thing seems pretty bizarre to those of us whose first language doesn't assign genders to nouns. It is often arbitrary, since even languages that share common Latin roots (like French and Spanish) assign different genders to the same noun. And you're right, it's not the inherent quality of a noun that makes it masculine or feminine: the best example of this is that "la testostérone" is feminine and "le vagin" is masculine in French!

This may make more sense if you look at the origins of this system, which are Latin. This explanation comes from an online article on grammatical gender:
"By extension, the same term [gender] is used for the expression of non-sexual natural characteristics...Note however that the word 'gender' derives from Latin 'genus', which is also the root of 'genre', and originally meant 'kind', so it does not necessarily have a sexual meaning."

I have a couple pieces of advice about how to deal with noun gender. First, when you encounter a new noun, memorize the masculine (le or un) or feminine (la or une) article along with it. If you look at the article as part and parcel of the noun, this will help. In fact, this is the way French children learn nouns.

Second, there are some rules about which spellings and which categories of nouns are usually masculine or feminine. They are summed up well on this page (click on the links on the left side of the page for more info):
http://www.languageguide.org/francais/grammar/gender/

Also, just to clear something up, a noun's gender doesn't affect its pronunciation, but it does affect the spelling and pronunciation of any articles (le/la or un/une) or adjectives that modify it.

I hope this helps!