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"Le" or "la"? Even the French can't decide
If you've ever dabbled in the French language, you know the difficulty of memorizing which gender goes with which noun. Why is a beard -- la barbe -- feminine? Why is a bicycle -- le vélo -- masculine? Well you shouldn't have to feel bad about your French language difficulties; turns out even the French can't agree on which gender goes with which word.A recent study conducted by Dalila Ayoun at the University of Arizona found that, "Fifty-six native French speakers, asked to assign the gender of 93 masculine words, uniformly agreed on only 17 of them. Asked to assign the gender of 50 feminine words, they uniformly agreed [on] only 1 of them. Some of the words had been anecdotally identified as tricky cases, but others were plain old common nouns."
Put simply, even native speakers have a hard time distinguishing between le and la. But I'm not surprised, French is after all très difficile.
Via LanguageHat
Filed under: Learning, France, Foreign Language
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Olivier P. Feb 29th 2008 4:26PM
Well, even worse, it's le velo but la bicyclette...
Joe Mar 1st 2008 4:56AM
I can understand why they can't agree. I'm taking french lessons and my professor says there is not system to feminine or masculine, you just have to know it. It might sound a little sexist but the closest I could figure is asking myself would a man or woman prefer using object. So it's le garage and la cuisine. No idea on cars, la voiture. I think it's because guys prefer to give their cars feminine names.
Heather Mar 1st 2008 12:22PM
I took four years of French in High School, and Joe is right- there is no system attached to the language. You either learn it or you don't. :-)
Heather
jon Mar 2nd 2008 4:51PM
Every french person I know just says use the one that feels right - some words just don't flow right (la france or le france, which trips off the tounge better?) with the wrong gender and the more you use french, the more you get a feel for this flow
Although they did tell me that foreign words in french (le piquenique, le weekend) are always masculine.
eric May 12th 2008 8:35PM
Le French is a cruise ship, La France is the mother country, but even in English we use the feminine gender when we speak about boat, why?
http://freefrench.frenchspanishonline.com
free french online
Frenchy Jul 24th 2008 9:04AM
FALSE!
Well, some of it anyway.
It's true that we don't have a particular system that can be applied again and again; however saying that the French can't decide isn't just false, it's offensive!
The study conducted must've been incredibly tricky far off cases or words that are not generally referred to as objects or even words that have multiple uses which can be both masculine and feminine!
As a native Frenchman, I can assure you all that anyone who would use 'le' in the place of 'la' or vice versa would get strange looks and a grammar lesson.
It's something that's acquired by hearing it used and practice. That's why we 'feel' it. It comes naturally after some time, just like learning any language, once you're fluent, you don't think about how you say something, it just comes.
Best way to learn? Get in amongst it, make an effort, make mistakes and learn from them.
Danbes Nov 23rd 2008 8:53AM
Why on EARTH French (and other languages) continue the archaic practice of identifying every object under the sun as masculine or feminine is beyond me. It simply adds unnecessary confusion to learning a language. THE man, THE woman, THE house, THE garden, THE ship (the one thing I can think of in English that's designated as a "she;), THE horse, THE rose, THE language. What could be simpler and easier to understand? (No, this isn't English language snobbery, it's simply the recognition that language out to be a dynamic and constantly changing thing.)
lalalalalalala Jan 14th 2009 11:42AM
so is l' Italie masculine or feminine
frenchie May 26th 2009 2:06PM
usually it comes from the latin root if it's male or female...
then there is always the good or bad... no offense but when I was little I used to learn according if it's good or bad...
Le Soleil... the sun... it's good it's male
La Pluie... the rain... it's bad... it's female
La tempete, la tornade, all bad all female :p
But then you have word that can be both... it's more about use in context...