Le/La – Back to basics
Today I decided to go back to basics. I feel that a lot of students haven’t maybe paid attention in class say back in first year and are flapping about since. In French, as I’m sure you must now by now, there are certain rules that seem to crop up everywhere and spoil the party for those in the dark….
I have met Leaving Cert students scrambling about weeks before their exam who have not grasped the points below. Now these are the very foundations of French so if you are bored already maybe its time to start Applied Metalwork instead….
Now if you have 10 minutes I want you to learn just three things. Not just learn – I want you to understand. Le and la.
Masculine/Feminine
When you learn a new word how do you actually learn it? I mean, take la maison for example. The house, I hear you say. Well done. Clap on the back. Now let me start by telling you that the “la” part is 50% of the burger. If you don’t know that then you’re only getting lettuce and some BBQ sauce…..know what I mean? You simply got to know that its not le maison. Its LA maison. Say the LA bit as if you were sticking your tongue out at someone – LAAAA. This should help. I don’t care how but you gotta remember this bit. If you cannot learn this bit then you’re on thin ice my friend.
What is a noun anyway and who cares?
A noun is the THING you are talking about.
I walk the dog. The dog is a noun. Its a thing.
I walk the big dog. The dog is still the noun. Just the dog.
The train was late. The train is the thing. the noun….geddit?
I read two books. books….will I go on…?
If you didn’t follow this then read it again. If you still didn’t follow it then let me know and I’ll try another angle for you…
How do we know when its mas/fem?
Well you just learn it off. Simple as that. There are some simple rules (like all words ending in -ette are feminine) but really you just got to learn if off.
Notice that both of the nouns below end in e….the first is masculine (le), the second feminine (la). Oh no! I hear you sigh in despair….Listen up! You just gotta learn this off….just because the NOUN ends in ‘e’ does NOT make it feminine. (You are probably thinking of adjectives and we will cover this in another blog).
le livre the book (masculine)
la gare the station (feminine)
Summary
(1) Le or LA which is it ? Just learn it off, will ya?
(2) What’s a noun?
(3) le livre is masculine and it ends in an e!
I’m off now on me bike, talk to you next time and we’ll elaborate a little on this basic building block by looking at what happens when we add in Adjectives (the big dog, green car etc) into the pot. Au revoir mes amis.
What is l’ so? Is this masculine or feminine ?
When the word is “le livre” or “la voiture” it is obvious that the first noun is masculing (LE) and the second noun is feminine (LA). So, following on from that we would know that adjectives would agree with the gender of the noun – la grande voiture, le grand livre etc [We will cover this in a later post, don't worry.]
But with l’oiseau it’s not obvious whether the noun is masculine or feminine…..
Well in this case it’s masculine. So we would get….
Regard l’oiseau, c’est un petit oiseau [Look at the bird, it's a small bird].
Again there are no shortcuts to knowing these apart from learning them off.