Noun Gender

• Logical Gender
• Category Gender
• Non Sacred Gender Rule
• - Part I Masculine
• - Part II Masculine
• - Part I Feminine
• - Part II Feminine
• - Homologues
• Trial By Fire

The Non Sacred Gender Rule

I. Expect all nouns to be masculine unless they end in mute e. II.Except for the following endings which are masculine to a large degree (despite ending in mute e ) -ge ending nouns -le ending nouns that don't end in -lle, -ole, -ale, or -ule -me ending nouns -re ending nouns that don't end in -ure -phe ending nouns and the following, which are feminine to a large degree (despite not ending in mute e ) -on ending nouns -é ending nouns -eur ending nouns

I call this the non sacred rule because it has so many exceptions. While you can't rely on this rule to determine noun gender on the fly, it can serve as a good starting point for approaching and learning the gender of nouns. In the following pages, french nouns are organized by the rule along with exceptions. There are quizzes throughout. I suggest you alternate between reviewing the tables and taking the quiz until you can guess the gender of all the nouns.