le nom

Image: Galeries Lafayette, Paris, France

A noun is a label for places, things, events, ideas, concepts and so on: a person, place, or thing.

Like English nouns, nouns in French may be categorized as common or proper, count or mass, singular or plural.

French nouns are also categorized as either masculine or feminine.

common vs. proper

Common nouns in English and French are the generic term for something. Common nouns are never spelled with a capital letter unless they begin a sentence.

Proper nouns are names of people, animals, or places and so begin with capital letters.

count vs. mass

Another way of classifying nouns is according to whether they can be counted or not. Count nouns identify individual entities that can be counted, like armadillos.

In contrast, a mass noun refers to an entity as an uncountable unit. In the following example, the bread that Amalia is eating is conceived of as a mass, that is, an undefined quantity.

The difference between count and mass nouns is usually clear cut. However, something that is typically countable such as a Mountain Dew (one Mountain Dew, two Mountain Dews, three Mountain Dews) can also be conceived of in terms of a mass, as in the following example.

singular vs. plural

All nouns in French and English are marked for number, that is, for singular (one) or plural (more than one). French, like English, usually indicates plurality by adding an -s to the end of the base form, the singular noun. Count nouns have both singular and plural forms:

Mass nouns typically have only a singular form. Try saying the plural forms of the following English mass nouns.

furniture, advice, information, trash...

It sounds strange doesn't it? This shows that it is difficult to pluralize a mass noun.

masculine vs. feminine

In French, gender affects all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles. A noun's gender is indicated by the article that comes before (precedes) it.

Masculine nouns are preceded by le and feminine nouns by la. The use of articles in French is more widespread than in English.

Gender in French, for the most part, is not about sex. It’s just a category.

The terms 'masculine' and 'feminine' really mean nothing more than 'noun class A' and 'noun class B'.

Because grammatical gender is generally arbitrary (=not logical), it is very important to memorize a noun's gender along with its spelling and pronunciation. The best way to do this is to memorize the article (le, la, un, une) when you memorize the noun.

NOTE: A glossary or dictionary may say: tablette (f), tablet. It’s best to write it out for yourself as “une tablette.”

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