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Gender & Articles — Le genre et les articles
🔑 Gender & Articles — Le genre et les articles
Every single noun in French is either masculine or feminine — and getting the article right is the very first thing an examiner checks. Choose the wrong article and your adjectives, pronouns, and agreements all collapse like dominoes. Master this and you unlock accurate, fluent French that earns marks across every assessment objective.
Les articles définis — Definite articles (the)
Use definite articles when talking about something specific, making general statements, discussing countries, or naming languages.
Earn the mark scheme marks
💡 Exam Tips & Common Errors
- In AQA writing tasks, every noun you introduce must have the correct article — examiners deduct under AO2 (knowledge of grammar) for wrong or missing articles.
- When writing about food or drink, always ask: is this a specific item (definite) or an unspecified quantity (partitive)? "I love bread" = j'aime le pain; "I'm eating bread" = je mange du pain.
- The negative → de rule is tested almost every year in the AQA controlled writing. Learn it as a reflex: if there is ne…pas, change du/de la/des/un/une to de.
- Do not try to guess a noun's gender from how it sounds — French has no reliable rule. Build a vocabulary list that always includes the article.
- Words ending in -ion, -té, -ure, -ette are often (not always) feminine; words ending in -ment, -age, -eau are often masculine — use these as hints, not guarantees.
❌ Common error: Je mange de la pain avec du beurre.
✓ Correct: Je mange du pain avec du beurre.
Why it costs marks: pain is masculine — the partitive for a masculine noun is du (de + le), not de la. Using the wrong gender article loses an AO2 mark and signals to the examiner that the learner has not memorised the gender of a core vocabulary item.
❌ Common error: Je vais à le cinéma.
✓ Correct: Je vais au cinéma.
Why it costs marks: à + le must contract to au — writing à le is a grammatical impossibility in French and will always attract an AO2 error mark.