4 Grammar
1 Nouns
Can you tell which words are nouns?
A noun is a ‘naming’ word. It might help to imagine a Christmas
present list... if the word you are thinking of is something you might
wish to give or get for Christmas, then it is a noun. This includes things
that you cannot see or touch, like peace, love or happiness.
Exercise A
Which of these French words are nouns?
1 trois
2 au revoir
3 stylo
■
■
■
4 chat
5 mère
6 gomme
■
■
■
7 petit
8 livre
9 silence
■
■
■
10 table
11 crayon
12 habite
■
■
■
Masculine or feminine? How to say ‘the’ – le, la, l’, les
In French, all nouns are either masculine or feminine. This is easy to
work out when the noun refers to a person, but how does anyone
decide about words like ‘pencil’ or ‘book’? There are a few basic rules,
or rather clues, that will point you in the right direction, but the only
sure way is to use your dictionary to check. When you look up a French
word in the dictionary, it will tell you whether or not that word is a
noun (n), and whether it is masculine (m) or feminine (f). So you will see
an entry that looks something like this – ‘maison -nf. house’ or ‘house n. maison f.’
the
Masculine
le
Feminine
la
Before a vowel (or silent ‘h’)
l’
Plural
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les
Sample only - Not for school use
4 Grammar
Clues for recognising the gender of a noun:
Nouns which are masculine
Nouns which are feminine
Male family members/relatives
Female family members/relatives
Job titles relating to men
Job titles relating to women
Countries not ending in -e
Countries and regions ending in -e
Fruit and vegetables not ending
in -e
Fruit and vegetables ending in -e
(exception: le pamplemousse)
Days, months, seasons
Shops ending in -e
Languages
Nouns ending in -ion
Most words adopted from English
Nouns ending in -té
Nouns ending in -c
Nouns ending in -ette
Nouns ending in -age
This was possibly a clue for
recognising gender…
Exercise B
Find the correct word for ‘the’ (le, la, l’ or les), for each noun:
1 ....samedi
4 ....tomate
7 ....football
10 ....natation
2 ....lac
5 ....France
8 ....sac
11 ....française
3 ....Canada 6 ....pâtisserie 9 ....pommes
Sample only - Not for school use
12 ....école
27
6 Vocabulary by topic
Your teacher might produce vocabulary lists from those provided in the
syllabus. However, this vocabulary list by GCSE topic should get you
started on creating your own. It does not have all the words you might
need in it – if it did, it would be called a dictionary and you should
already have one of those!
To give you an indication of the range of vocabulary you will need to
know, some useful words and expressions appear in French with their
English meanings. Space has been allowed for you to list additional
vocabulary you might need or find useful.
Things were going in but nothing
seemed to stick…
Sample only - Not for school use
85
6 Vocabulary by topic
School
d’abord
l’allemand
après
cet après midi
aujourd’hui
en avance
la bibliothèque
la cantine
le collège
la cour
demain
dessiner
difficile
durer
ennuyuex/euse
ensuite
l’espagnol
être fort(e) en
étudier
first of all
German
after
this afternoon
today
in advance, early
library
canteen
secondary school
playground
tomorrow
to draw
difficult
to last (time)
boring
next, after
Spanish
to be good at
to study
facile
la gomme
hier
l’histoire-géo
l’informatique
jouer
loin
la matière
les maths
ce matin
moyenne
préférer
la règle
en retard
la salle
les sciences
sévère
les travaux manuels
les vacances
easy
rubber
yesterday
humanities
ICT
to play
far
subject
maths
this morning
average
to prefer
rule, ruler
late
room
science
strict
CDT crafts
holidays
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Sample only - Not for school use
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