The article
In French, the noun is usually accompanied by an article or another "small word",
such as a demonstrative (this, that, ...) or a possessive (my, your, his, ...), etc. To
give you an example, we never use the noun "café" (coffee) alone, but we say le
café (the coffee), un café (a coffee), du café (some coffee), mon café (my coffee),
ce café (this coffee), etc. Only a few categories of nouns, such as people's names,
cities and islands, can go without articles (or other small words). Here are a few
examples:
people's names: Monsieur Dupont, Paul, Martine, Sophie, Jacques Chirac, etc.
cities: Paris, Lyon, Marseille, New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Pékin, etc.
islands: Taiwan, Haïti, Hawaï, Lantau, Cheung Chau, etc.
So the article is more present in French than in English and even more than in
Chinese. As in these two languages however, it is always before the noun.
Another difference is that there are more types of articles in French than in English.
There are definite and indefinite articles, as in English (but unfortunately the
French articles are not exactly equivalent to the English ones). There is also a third
type of articles which has no equivalent in English or Chinese. They are called
partitive articles (we use them to give an idea of quantity, but more about this later).
One last important thing you should know about the article is that it bears the marks
of the gender (male/female) and number (singular/plural) of the noun. So the same
article will actually look and sound differently according to whether it accompanies a
male or a female noun, a singular or a plural one. This is totally different from both
English and Chinese, where the article does not bear such marks.
Examples:
singulier
pluriel
masculin
le garçon (the boy)
les garçons (the
boys)
féminin
la fille (the girl)
les filles (the
girls)
To summarize:
always use an article with a noun
always put the article before the noun
always make sure the article is in agreement with the noun
(male/female, singular/plural)
L'article défini 1 / The definite article 1
The article défini has four different forms:
singulier
pluriel
masculin
le - l’
féminin
la - l’
les
As we saw in the previous "fiche" (l'article), French nouns are always either male or female,
or rather, as we say in French, either masculin or féminin. The form, the sound, the spelling
of the noun itself will not usually help you to remember whether a noun is masculin or
féminin, and except for nouns designing people or animals, the meaning of the noun does not
help either.
The article however will let you know, because the form of the article changes with the
gender of the noun. We use le with masculin nouns and la with féminin nouns. The plural
form is les for both masculin and féminin. Please note that when the noun begins with a
vowel sound (like étudiante, animal, éléphant, hôtel, etc.), we use a shorter form, l’ for both
masculin or féminin.
examples:
le livre, le dictionnaire, le chat, le lion, le taxi, le bus are masculin nouns.
la Chine, la France, la classe, la clinique, la girafe are féminin nouns.
l’étudiant, l’hôtel, l’animal are masculin nouns, but l’étudiante, l’université, l’Egypte
are féminin nouns.
Now look at these sentences:
J’aime le café. (I like coffee)
Le chien est un animal domestique. (The dog is a domesticated animal)
Elle déteste les aéroports. (She hates airports)
What I mean here is that I like any kind of coffee, that any member of the dog family is
domesticated, that she hates all kind of airports. Le café, le chien, les aéroports, do not refer
to a particular coffee, dog or airport, but to coffee, dogs or airports in general.
This use of the article défini is particularly common with verbs like aimer, préférer, adorer,
détester, etc.
Now try to do the exercises about the article défini 1 (printable - online: ex. 1, ex. 2). The
exercises themselves are easy (all you have to do is choose between le, la, l' and les), but do
them slowly and carefully, and even more importantly, try to understand the meaning of the
article ("in general") in each of these sentences.
L'article défini 2 / The definite article 2
Read the following sentences:
La tour Eiffel est à Paris. (The Eiffel Tower is in Paris)
Paris est la capitale de la France. (Paris is the capital city of France)
Aujourd’hui, le soleil brille. (The sun is shining today)
La tour Eiffel, la France, la capitale, le soleil, they all have one thing in common: they
are unique. There is only one of them in the whole world. There is only one Eiffel
tower, only one France, only one capital city in France, and of course, only one sun.
When we want to speak about something unique, we use the article défini.
In some cases, like in the previous examples, the object or person we are talking
about is unique because there is only one such object or person in the whole world.
In other cases, it is the situation in which we are or some characteristics of the object
or person that make it unique, that allow me to identify it. For example, if I am in a
room with a friend, and there is a book on the table, I can ask him/her:
Donne-moi le livre ! (Give me the book)
Now it is obvious that there are more than one book in the world, but in this situation,
there can be no doubt about which book I mean, because there is only one book in
the room in which we are. In that situation, the book is unique. My friend will be able
to identify the book and give it to me.
If there are several books on the table, my friend will not be able to identify which
one I want. He will ask me: “Quel livre ?” (Which book ?). I will then have to give
him/her some more indications:
Donne-moi le livre rouge (give me the red book) or
Donne-moi le livre de sociologie (give me the sociology book) or
Donne-moi le livre de Victor Hugo (give me the book by Victor Hugo)
So if we are talking about something unique (either because there is only one in the
world or because in a particular situation, we have enough information to identify it),
we use the article défini.
Here are some more examples:
Elle prend le livre de Paul. (She is taking Paul’s book)
La femme de Jules est très jolie. (Jules’ wife is very pretty.)
Le président des Etats-Unis est en voyage en Chine. (The president of the United States is
travelling in China.)
L’article indéfini / The indefinite article
The article indéfini has three different forms:
singulier
pluriel
masculin
un
féminin
une
des
As we said before, French nouns are always either masculin or féminin. Only the
article will help you to recognize the gender of the nouns. We use un with masculin
nouns and une with féminin nouns. When the noun is in the plural form, we use des
for both masculin or féminin.
un dictionnaire, un taxi, un train, un hôtel, un avion are masculin.
une étudiante, une classe, une actrice, une gomme are féminin.
des amis, des stylos, des étudiantes, des professeurs are plural.
Read the following sentences:
J’ai une voiture rouge. (I have a red car)
Nous habitons dans un petit appartement. (We live in a small flat.)
Il mange un sandwich. (He eats a sandwich)
In these examples, there is no way I can identify the car, the flat or the sandwich. I
do not have enough information for this. There are many different red cars, small
flats or sandwiches. In a situation like this in which we cannot identify the object or
person we are talking about, we use an article indéfini.
Here are some more examples:
Il fait des exercices de français. (He is doing French exercises)
Nous avons des frères et des sœurs. (We have brothers and sisters)
Je connais des gens au Canada. (I know people in Canada)
Vous voulez un café ? (Do you want a coffee ?)
Ils regardent un film de Godart. (They are watching a Godart’s movie)
Les articles définis et indéfinis / Definite and
indefinite articles
Do you remember what we said in the other pages about articles ?
1.
In French, a noun is always preceded by an article (or another "small" word)
2.
The noun decides the form of the article you choose.
3.
What you mean decides the type of article you choose.
Let’s explain all this again.
1.
In French, a noun is always preceded by an article.
Look at the following sentences:
Le professeur est dans la classe. (the teacher is in the classroom.)
We have two nouns here: professeur and classe. Each of the nouns is preceded by
another word: le for professeur, and la for classe. Le and la are articles.
2.
The noun decides the form of the article you choose.
Look again at the example:
Le professeur est dans la classe. (the teacher is in the classroom.)
I chose le because professeur is a masculin noun, and la because classe is féminin.
So the form of the article depends on the noun, whether it is masculin or féminin,
and singulier or pluriel. Each article has three different forms:
Article défini
Singulier
pluriel
3.
Article indéfini
Masculin
Féminin
le – l’
la – l’
les
Masculin
Singulier
un
pluriel
What you mean decide the type of article you choose.
Compare these sentences:
a.
J’aime un chien. (I like a dog.)
b.
J’aime les chiens. (I like dogs.)
c.
J’aime le chien de ma sœur. (I like my sister’s dog.)
Féminin
une
des
All three sentences are correct, but they all mean something different:









In sentence a, I just mention the fact that I like a dog, but I do not give any
indication that will allow you to identify that dog. You have no way, from what I
tell you, to find out which dog is the object of my affections.
In sentence b, I simply state my affection for dogs in general. I do not refer to a
particular dog. I just like any dog.
In sentence c, I refer to a particular dog, my sister's dog, a unique dog. You are
able to identify the dog I am talking about.
By the way, you may have noticed that when I want to talk about things or
persons in general, I will use the plural form for countable nouns, and the
singular form for uncountable nouns:
a.
J’aime le café. (I like coffee.)
b.
J’aime les cafés. (I like cafés.)
The first café means the drink, coffee, and is uncountable. So when I want to
refer to café in general, I use the singular form.
The second café means the place where you drink coffee, and is countable. So
when I want to refer to cafés in general, I use the plural form.