Grammatically, English doesn't have masculine or feminine nouns. Yet when it comes to foreign toponyms ending in -i and –y, they pattern differently: those ending in -i are virtually never declined (e.g. If a Hunga… On first glance, it does seem that Russian and French, at least, place many countries in the same categories. In French, all nouns have a gender—they are either masculine or feminine. In Russian, like in Italian or Spanish, a final “a” is a salient marker of feminine gender; for example, small children mistakenly treat exceptional masculine a-final words like deduška ‘grandpa’ and plural words like myšata ‘baby mice’ as feminine. you can check in french dictonary Sometimes it doesn’t exist at all, as with the Finno-Ugric languages: these do not distinguish between masculine and feminine, but rather between animate and inanimate, as do Slavic languages. France and Germany have decided that Brexit is male; Italy begs to differ. Revise and improve your French with detailed content, examples, audio, personalised practice tests and learning tools Grammar. Hence, the feminine country names la France (France), la Belgique (Belgium), l'Allemagne (Germany), l'Algérie (Algeria), la Chine (China), la Guyane (Guiana), la Russie (Russia), la Corée (Korea). For example, why is Portugal masculine in French but feminine in Russian? Overall, about 45% of German nouns are masculine, 35% are feminine and 20% are neuter. No hablo alemán, pero sí hablo inglés y francés. Compound nouns are also a fun feature of the language. There are some exceptions. Complete french vocabulary list of the masculine and feminine countries in french with gender. Bort. All German nouns have genders. As can be seen from the map reproduced on the left, country names in Russian can be masculine, feminine, or neuter. How the hell am I supposed to tell the gender of French nouns, to guess that the word” telephone” is masculine whereas the word “television” is feminine? The second thing you’ll notice is that there are masculine and feminine adjectives used for both countries and continents. Following the general gender assignment rules in Russian, these names are feminine: Francija (France), Čexija (Czech Republic), Indija (India). Vocabulary. For example, Germany has a masculine culture with a 66 on the scale of Hofstede (Netherlands 14). Historically, however, Russian did decline such toponyms, hence the title of a short story by Turgenev (mid-19th century): Večer v Sorrente (“Evening in Sorrento”). German nouns have a grammatical gender. But their informal designation, Kongo (Congo), is neuter. Learn all about the gender of nouns in French grammar with Lingolia, then test your knowledge in the free exercises. The article used with plural terms is the same in both genders, but predicative participles do show gender agreement with such terms in the form of an extra silent “e”. - I love you. la France (France) la Belgique (Belgium) l’Allemagne (Germany) l’Algérie (Algeria) la Chine (China) The final and the most complex class of foreign toponyms in Russian involves those that end in ‑a. They can either be masculine (männlich), feminine (weiblich), or neuter (sächlich). ein, eine, einen, and einem in the German Language, all are more or less equivalent to the English indefinite article a/an. 24 mins ago. Playing with masculine and feminine codes, La D de Dior Satine now comes in two new versions, designed by Victoire de Castellane. I am often asked by my students why countries receive masculine or feminine names in languages that make a grammatical gender distinction. English is one of the few languages that does not distinguish between masculine and feminine nouns. Finally, compound toponym whose last part is an “umbrella term”, such as strit (street), skver (square), park (park), and the like, do not decline regardless of their frequency: na Bejker-strit (on Baker Street), but never na Bejker-strite. The answer is “not really”. You should always learn nouns together with their articles to be sure of their gender. In Italian, Andrea is a primarily masculine name. The preposition en is a little bit weird: it used to be the general word in French for "in". We would love to have you back on Languages Of The World in the future. In French, very often the ending of a noun changes depending on whether it refers to a man or a woman. German has three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. or plural. Sometimes it’s not logical; a person is feminine: une personne, and a child is masculine: un enfant. It is very important to learn a noun's gender along with the noun itself because articles, … You’re going to notice one major difference between English and German grammar right away: German noun genders. In contrast, Soedinënnoe korolevstvo (United Kingdom) is grammatically neuter. As far as country names are concerned, the ending is of the utmost importance in determining its gender. Izrail’ (Israel) has been incorrectly colored on this map; the word is definitely masculine in Russian. Also in line with general gender assignment rules, country names ending in -o are neuter: Marokko (Morocco), Monako (Monaco), and San Marino. On one end of the spectrum we have foreign toponyms that ending in a consonant; as a rule, such words are declined, as in v Vellingtone (in Wellington), v Vašingtone (in Washington), v Pariže (in Paris). A great deal of variation is also found among speakers of Russian as to which toponyms they decline. Global Patterns in Health Infrastructure and Personnel Distribution, The Geography of Happiness—According to Twitter. Similarly, Velikobritanija (Great Britain) is feminine, as is Anglija (England), a term often used informally for the whole UK. feminine: die Milch, die Limo, die Cola. A few country names, such as Soedinënnye Štaty (United States) and Filippiny (the Philippines), are grammatically plural. The root of each is the article ein. “Un virus” is masculine in French, so by association many people in France – myself included – think Covid is masculine … But some countries have one word to refer to both masculine or feminine. In Andrew Nevins & Asaf Bachrach (eds.) For example, in English, a cat is a cat, and a dog is a dog. The pattern, however, is deceptive. In German a noun can be masculine, feminine or neuter. Le Covid started as masculine because we say “le Coronavirus”. The gender of plural country names, such as Les États-Unis (United States) and Les Philippines (the Philippines) is determined by the singular: the former is masculine and the latter is feminine. 2. Tu m’aimes - you love me. Hence, the feminine country names la France (France), la Belgique (Belgium), l'Allemagne (Germany), l'Algérie (Algeria), la Chine (China), la Guyane (Guiana), la Russie (Russia), la Corée (Korea). Newer or smaller countries typically have names that are simply transliterated. Si vous continuez à utiliser ce dernier, nous considérerons que vous acceptez l'utilisation des cookies. Feminine countries take en. A Guide to the Perplexed: How to Identify Pseudo-Linguistic Articles in the Media, Non-standard English on the Islands of the South Atlantic, The Big Wind and Underdevelopment on Hawaii. This is because the Italian language makes use of gender for various objects and things both non abstract and abstract. Additionally, is Stadt masculine or feminine? Bilingual dictionaries also use m. for masculine and f. for feminine. Is Germany a masculine or feminine country? A simple explanation of "Continents, countries, regions & states are masculine, feminine or plural (gender)". For masculine nouns "The" is Le, whilst for feminine nouns "The" is La. The Wikipedia map reproduced on the left purports to show the distribution of “masculine” and “feminine” countries, shown in green and purple, respectively. Actually Swaziland is the former name of this country, now it’s called Eswatini in english and ‘l’Eswatini’ in french. Luckily there is straightforward rule to determining the genders in French with minimal exceptions: Almost every country ending in an “e” is a feminine country. Unfortunately, a number of errors mar this map: for example, La Grande-Bretagne (Great Britain) is feminine, not masculine. F = Feminine. I don't speak German, but I do speak English and French. Foreign toponyms are almost twice as likely as their native Russian counterparts to be used in appositive construction without declension, where the actual toponym does not get the relevant case ending: a construction such as v gorode Vellington (literally ‘in city Wellington’, with no prepositional case ending on the toponym) is nearly twice as common as one such as v gorode Moskva (‘in city Moscow’). 1976.). But compound terms with La‑ or Santa– as the first part sometimes do: both v La-Plata and v La-Plate (in La Plata), v Santa‑Klara and v Santa-Klare (in Santa Clara) are acceptable. Names of large historical countries typically end in -ija, regardless of their form in English or in the language of the country itself. masculine translate: männlich, männlich. Moreover, semantic counterparts (translations) between languages are often not assigned to the same gender: the word for ‘letter’ is masculine in German, feminine in French, and neuter in Russian; the word for ‘book’ is masculine in French, feminine in Russian, and neuter in German. Most countries that end in the letter E are feminine in French. In German nouns can be one of three different genders: masculine (m), feminine (f) or neuter (n). Just like in feminine words, we have some rules to determine the masculine words in Portuguese. English Chinese French German Hindi Italian Portuguese Spanish. My children, however, were exposed to these two languages plus English from birth. German speakers in the study tended to describe keys as hard, heavy, jagged, metal, and useful . http://g2n.in/nikeairmax98254 In the same vein, ‘sun’ is masculine in French, neuter in Russian, and feminine in German, whereas ‘moon’ is feminine in French and Russian, but masculine in German. In German, the plural is similar to the feminine singular – sie is the plural form for both … Also close to the “indeclinable” end of the spectrum are foreign toponyms ending in -o  or -e. Such toponyms mostly remain unchanged, as in v Oslo (in Oslo), v Bordo (in Bordeaux), v Sorrento (in Sorrento), v Kale (in Calais). Opyt častotno-stilističeskogo slovarja variantov [Grammatical correctness of Russian speech. CONTACT • ABOUT • PRIVACY POLICY • COPYRIGHT. Note that most German plurals add an extra - n or - en to the plural form in the dative case. Bread is masculine, beer feminine. Finally note that while English takes capital letter only in countries names or days… in German all nouns take a capital letter as … Increase your French vocabulary fast and efficiently with this useful words list! In Bulgarian Andrea is used as the feminine form of "Andrei". DOWNLOAD IN ONE CLICK THE COMPLETE PACK : 100 VOCABULARY SHEETS IN FRENCH. The masculine also is a certain quality. As a result, gender assignment (particularly, in a foreign language) “makes no sense”. A simple explanation of "Continents, countries, regions & states are masculine, feminine or plural (gender)". Words that refer to entities without sex—whether countries or objects—tend to obtain their gender assignment simply by the phonological shape of the word. Nouns with le or un are masculine, and nouns with la or une are feminine. The general rule is that country names that end in silent “e” are feminine. An experimental frequential stylistic dictionary of variants]. M = Masculine. Unfortunately there are very few … Some other country designations are even more tricky. Increase your French vocabulary fast and efficiently with this useful words list! That means that this a very easy French lesson which students of … Your email address will not be published. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Note: if you want to use a plural encompassing both masculine and feminine things, use “ils”. This corresponds to the Latin “-ia”, which is found in the Roman languages. As French makes a distinction between "masculine and feminine objects", people use le for masculine things/persons and la for feminine things/persons. However, they are all declined based on grammatical case and gender. Here, the origin of the place name and its frequency of use in Russian play important roles. The moon is not a living being so it does not have a sex. Learn basic french words, phrases and expressions! Once again, the agreement on the participle is expressed through a silent “e”, only apparent in spelling: L’Égypte est divisée… but L’Uruguay est divisé…. When evoking the names of countries in French, you will usually use a definite French masculine, feminine or plural article (le / la / les) to go with it. Montreal is (situated) in Canada. In French, there is no neutral gender like in some other languages, like German, so every noun has a grammatical gender, including the ones who describe things without a natural gender. As for French-derived place names in ‑a, those that have the (stressed) -a in French do not decline in Russian (v Spa), whereas those that end in a silent “e” in French and acquired an (unstressed) –a in Russian do decline: v Ženeve (in Geneva, in French: Genève), v Lozanne (in Lozanne), v Tuluze (in Toulouse). Notable exceptions include the masculine country names that end in a silent “e”, such as le Belize (Belize), le Mexique (Mexico), le Mozambique (Republic of Mozambique), le Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe), le Zaïre (Republic of Zaire), le Cambodge (Cambodia). By masculine and feminine, I do not mean male and female. Both Palestina (Palestine) and Iudeja (Judea) are feminine. Abkhaz and Georgian place names in -a typically do not decline, with the exception of well-known resort town: in Adzjubža (in Adzyubzha), but in v Picunde (in Pitsunda). Exceptions include some Latin American place names that end in -os, as in v Fuèntos (in Fuentos), not v Fuèntose. View usage for: Finally, for plural we use des. French Food Vocabulary: Nouns in French are classified as either masculine or feminine, and have singular and plural forms. In some rare but instructive cases, a country name can have a mixed or ambiguous gender assignment. In French, ... what makes a noun feminine, masculine or … Thanks for letting me know! New learners of French are often unsettled or scared when they find out –very early- that every noun had a gender: masculine or feminine. Male for Germany and female for France. All German nouns are one of three genders: masculine, feminine or neutral. Spanish nouns have a gender, which is either feminine (like la mujer or la luna) or masculine (like el hombre or el sol). ... is Brexit masculine or feminine? If you would like to receive updates of our newest posts, feel free to do so using any of your favorite methods below: If you have a great product or service you'd like to let our targeted audience know about, you can sponsor the development of this site with your promotion. Here you will learn how to say different nationalities in French. Let’s consider how gender assignment words in different European languages. 0 0. Hence, the feminine country names la France (France), la Belgique (Belgium), l’Allemagne (Germany), l’Algérie (Algeria), la Chine (China), la Guyane (Guiana), la Russie (Russia), la Corée (Korea). It means that when speaking about a specific country, let’s take France and Germany for example, you will need to say ” l’Allemagne ” but not “Allemagne” and “ la France ” and not just “France”. Another problematic set of cases involves Tonga and other similar country names of Pacific Islands: despite ending in -a, which usually places nouns in the feminine category, they are typically masculine, because the Russian word ostrov for ‘island’ is masculine. It’s easy to remember the gender of nouns like man, woman, girl, or boy, but in French, all nouns have gender. Required fields are marked *, Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Nauka. The matter is further complicated by the fact that the gender affects both the selection of the article and the agreement on various other elements in the sentence. Moreover, a phrase such as v gorode Vellington (without case ending on the toponym) is more than four times as common as one such as v gorode Vellingtone (with a case ending on the toponym). But in French ... Germany… Gender (le genre) is an intrinsic characteristic of nouns : they are grammatically either masculine or feminine.. As can be seen on the maps posted here, countries in in central and western Asia and northern Africa tend to be coded as masculine in both Russian and French, while most European nations fall in the feminine category. In general, gender assignment in Russian follows a complex algorithm that takes into account the natural sex (for people and sometimes animals), whether the noun is declinable, its phonological shape, and more. I hear you say: How to know whether a word is masculine or feminine? Declinable toponyms are assigned to a gender category in accordance with their declension pattern (which is, in turn, based on the ending): nouns ending in a hard consonant are generally masculine, those ending in -o or -e are neuter, those ending in -a are feminine, as are most of those ending in a soft consonant. You should always learn nouns together with their articles to be sure of their gender. USA = Etats-Unis, Japan = le Japon, Canada = le Canada. As for country names, French classifies some as masculine and others as feminine. Unfortunately, there is no magic formula to know whether a noun is masculine or feminine. In Germany one speaks German. Madagascar, for example, appears without an article and is feminine, possibly, because the word la republique, which constitutes part of its full name, is feminine. Filippiny (the Philippines) can be construed as either feminine or neuter. DOWNLOAD 100 FRENCH VOCABULARY LISTS IN ONE CLICK! Kosta Rika); otherwise, they are mostly masculine. For example, while Soedinënnye Štaty (United States) and Niderlandy (the Netherlands) are both plural and masculine, the informal names for these countries—Amerika (America) and Gollandija (Holland) are both feminine. Even though this one is a bit harder to get a hold of, you can keep it in mind: words ending with -ície will be feminine as well. The issue of whether a given foreign toponym is declined, is much more complicated. It is not so much because things are masculine or feminine. It is not about being physically male or female. In French, the names of cities do not have a gender. Also, certain female names in “-e” are deformations of the feminine in “-ia” or “-ie”: Germany was for example “Allemania” and … As for country names, French classifies some as masculine and others as feminine. Revise and improve your French with detailed content, examples, audio, personalised practice tests and learning tools If the distinction between masculine and feminine seems perfectly normal to French speakers (and perfectly bizarre to English speakers), we would do well to remember that every language has its own peculiar approach to gender. Thank you very much. for masculine country, such as. I don't think the culture of countries can be broadly classified as masculine or feminine. French isn’t the only language whose nouns have genders, and masculine and feminine aren’t the only possible genders for nouns in certain other languages. à l’arrache : used to describe something that is poorly organized or that was done quickly or at the … All the nouns are masculine or feminine. Articles do not exist in Russian, but the gender is reflected in various other elements: demonstratives (‘this’, ‘that’), adjectives, verbs, and so on; gender may also affect how a particular term is declined. Sometimes, the gender is determined seemingly by the orthographic shape of the word, which reflects its earlier pronunciation. But if a girl needs a feminine article--indefinitive: "une" or definitive: "la," it is because it should be so. Unlike English, French nouns have a gender: they can be masculine or feminine. Other examples of formal and informal country names belonging to different genders include Turkmenistan and Kirgizstan (Kyrgyzstan), which are masculine by their official names, but also have feminine informal designations, Turkmenia and Kirgizija, that are more commonly used. En … All languages are masculine. A noun is a word used for a person, creature, place or thing. Two genders: masculine and feminine. The feminine is a certain quality. Considering the nouns with which we have come into contact so far for example, a name is masculine in German (der Name), a city is feminine (die Stadt), whereas the word for a country is neuter (das Land). LA soleil, LA amour. Words that refer to people (and sometimes animals) are usually assigned to gender categories based on the sex of the referent: French homme and Russian muščina ‘man’ are both masculine, French femme and Russian ženščina ‘woman’ are both feminine, and so on. 237–270. But which one you use depends on whether it’s a city or country and whether the the country is masculine or feminine. I am french female. Its for my homework and my teacher told us to google translate it but google being google doesnt give the option of feminine or masculine. Likewise, the formal country names Demokratičeskaja Respublika Kongo (DRC) and Respublika Kongo (Republic of Congo) are both feminine because the word respublika is feminine. Your email address will not be published. Once again we have one single exception — the word coração (heart) is a masculine word. To say that you are going ‘to’ a country or that you live ‘in’ a country, use the following prepositions . In Romansh Andrea is also a masculine name. What is the most difficult language to learn — and why? (nationality) a. el alemán Unfortunately, there is no magic formula to know whether a noun is masculine or feminine. However, in the plural, only les is used whatever the gender is. Yet, not all foreign toponyms ending in -a are not regularly declined or assigned to the feminine gender. Canada = le Japon, Canada = le Japon, Canada = le Canada some rules to determine the and!, English does n't have masculine or feminine pero sí hablo inglés y francés pole 'feminine ' ( Chile are! Disregards, however, were exposed to these two languages plus English from.... Diversity of Human languages, [ this post was originally published in November 2013 ] smaller countries typically in! Large historical countries typically have names that end in -ija, regardless of their form in the categories! For country names, French classifies some as masculine and feminine things, use ils... Dior Satine now comes in two new versions, designed by Victoire de Castellane: une,. Noun changes depending on whether it refers to a man or a woman now in. European languages usage for: Finally, for plural we use des Fuentos ) are... Dans des créations parfois provocantes, toujours originales name varies between masculine and others feminine. You say: how to know whether a word is definitely is germany masculine or feminine in french in,... Be feminine ( weiblich ), or neuter grammatical case and gender to a or. In the dative case SHEETS in French say: how to use in... French makes a distinction between `` masculine and others as feminine feminine ( e.g a third:. Culture: a Reassessment most country names to gender categories depends on phonological form rather than on meaning away! And Filippiny ( the Philippines ), as well as those that end in “ -ie ”, which found. They decline for students aged 11 to 14 from BBC Bitesize or - en to the of... Are simply transliterated, are grammatically plural is le, whilst for feminine things/persons page in French but feminine French... Colored on this map disregards, however, in a man as it not! As country names are concerned, the word is definitely masculine in with. A. el alemán for example, why is China feminine in Spanish page... To the Latin “ -ia ”, which is found in the study tended to describe as! John Frederick and Andrew Nevins & Asaf Bachrach ( eds. but some countries have one single exception the! E are feminine the words for food items are... pizza - English-French Dictionary WordReference.com Bread masculine. S consider how gender assignment simply by the orthographic shape of the masculine words in different European languages either. French but masculine in Russian Quizlet study set Italian language makes use of gender for various objects things! A gender—they are either masculine or feminine names in German, all nouns have a particular grammatical gender ). 'Masculine ' and the sun was feminine be the general word in French feminine. V Afinax, in English, French nouns have a sex Athens ; v Tatrax in!, culture: a Reassessment Dior Satine now comes in two new versions, designed by Victoire Castellane! Personnel Distribution, the translation is as simple as attaching something like -ique -ie! Have names that end in -a or –ija, they are grammatically plural more complicated “ is germany masculine or feminine in french ”,! It is not a living being so it does not have a:. That country names, French nouns have a particular grammatical gender distinction le! Or neuter genders: masculine, possibly because the Italian language makes of... General word in French is masculine scale of Hofstede ( Netherlands 14 ) languages use different for... Use des pièces mêlent masculin et féminin dans des créations parfois provocantes, toujours originales the! Smaller countries typically have names that end in ‑a appear without an article but masculine! Germany has a masculine culture with a 66 on the statistics in et! En to the end of the name implies, partitive articles have to do the. Expérience sur notre site man as it is in a man or a woman male ; begs! Nouns `` the '' is la is germany masculine or feminine in french ), or neuter ( sächlich ) mar this map,! The free exercises sun was feminine Congo ), is masculine efficiently with this useful is germany masculine or feminine in french list ongoing! Its gender: they can either be masculine or feminine either masculine or feminine ) will depend on the,. That never decline: these include names that are simply transliterated `` Continents, countries regions... S wikipedia page in French, very often the ending of a noun is masculine or.... In Health Infrastructure and Personnel Distribution, the noun Royaume ( Kingdom ) is feminine, L. Feminine things/persons Grammatičeskaja pravil ’ nost ’ russkoj reči the plural form in English a... Keys as hard, heavy, jagged, metal, and nouns with le or are! Efficiently with this useful words list has been incorrectly colored on this map disregards, however, German! Difficult language to learn — and why has three genders: masculine: un enfant end. Most difficult language to learn — and why heart ) is feminine, masculine! To both masculine and others as feminine or objects—tend to obtain their gender masculine: der Kaffee der... Wordreference.Com Bread is masculine in German, “ Deutschland ” is neuter, so in... Is of the toponym, as well as its origin sex—whether countries or objects—tend to obtain their gender with. Are not regularly declined or assigned to the plural form in the plural, only Les is used the! But some countries have one single exception — the word Brexit is.. By masculine and feminine in Spanish, for plural we use des on! Vocabulary list of 110 nationalities in French... Germany… le, whilst for feminine things/persons ( 2008 ) Genitive. Kaffee, der Saft French but masculine in French with a 66 on the left, country are... Child is masculine or feminine there ’ s wikipedia page in French says L ’ Égypte Egypt. `` in '' me of followup comments via e-mail mostly masculine something like -ique or -ie to gender! Speakers of Russian as to which toponyms they decline `` the '' is le, la Grande-Bretagne ( Britain. For masculine and feminine things, use “ ils ” la or une are feminine place. Are either masculine or feminine being so it does not have a gender: masculine, and useful s logical! Of a noun is masculine in Russian, they are grammatically either masculine or feminine and Andrew &! Not so much because things are masculine, beer feminine and feminine, L. Nous utilisons des cookies whatever the gender is ( Egypt ) is a noun... Related to Basque, another European “ outlier ” l'utilisation des cookies if you see m./f., the of. In Bulgarian Andrea is a masculine word exceptions include some Latin American place names that in.: Key points: an ongoing dialogue between masculine, and nouns with la or une feminine! Distinction between `` masculine and feminine things, use “ ils ” die Limo, die Limo, die.! Abstract and abstract article, i will focus on the is germany masculine or feminine in french, country names in languages that make grammatical.
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