Les cognats

A cognate is a word in one language that looks like a word in another language AND it means the same thing. Listen to the following sentences from the homework. Click the image to see the pronunciation markings better.


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All nouns in French have grammatical gender. They are either masculine or feminine.

The word "the" in French is le for masculine nouns: le bracelet
The word "the" in French is la for feminine nouns: la table
If a word begins with a vowel sound, use l' instead for both masculine and feminine nouns: l'hippopotame, l'ambulance

If a noun is feminine, the adjective that describes it must also be feminine. This usually involves adding an -e to the end of the adjective, but sometimes there are other spelling changes. Look at the examples below: