Remember The Gender of French Words
- The Easy Way! -

gender signs

-- Gender of French Words --

All French nouns have a gender – masculine OR feminine and some also have a masculine AND feminine form.

The problem is, how on earth do you remember which French nouns are masculine and which are feminine?

Some people say, just learn the gender of French words one by one and others learn vague rules. I personally think practice is the best - the more you use/hear a word the more its gender will come naturally to you.

Another good way to remember the gender of French words is to learn the list of 40 word endings below. If you learn them all, you will be able to correctly identify the gender of 75% of all French nouns with an accuracy rate of around 95%.

These rules correctly predict the gender of more than a whopping 13398 nouns that you'd otherwise have to memorise.

-- Gender of French Words --

FEMININ ENDINGS			MASCULIN ENDINGS
Word Ending	Accuracy Rate	Main Exceptions	Word Ending	Accuracy Rate	Main Exceptions
-ade	95%	jade, grade, stade,	-age	99%	cage, plage, image, nage, page, rage,
-aison	100%		-an	95%	médian, maman,
-ce	89%	espace, crustace, exercice, bénéfice, office, artifice, précipice, dentifrice, armistice,vice, service, silence, prince, commerce, pouce,	-c	98%	fac,
-ee	89%	lycée, périgée, trophée, pedigree, musée,	-d	97%
-ie	98%	incendie, cryptographie, périhélie, génie, foie, parapluie,	-eme	90%
-iere	97%	arrière, derrière, cimetière,	-g	99%
-ine	91%	domaine, capitaine, ciné, pipeline, moine, patrimoine, magazine,	-i	91%	merci, fourmi, foi, loi,
-ion	97%	ion, million, billion, camion, dominion, lampion, scorpion, espion, démilitarisation, antivivisection, bastion, attribution, avion,	-in	96%	main, fin,
-ite	94%	trilobite, anthracite, plébiscite, gîte, graphite, satellite, théodolite, comité, ermite, termite, granite, rite, mérite, site, opposite,	-is	93%	brebis, fois, souris, oasis,
-lle	87%	intervalle, vermicelle, scelle, braille, mille, gorille, vaudeville,	-iste	97%	modiste, liste, piste,
-se	85%	vase, malaise, suspense, sconse, opposé, exposé, gypse, inverse, colosse, carrosse, pamplemousse,	-k	98%
-tte	98%	squelette,	-l	89%
-ude	94%	prélude, interlude, coude,	-lon	98%
-ure	90%	dinosaure, centaure, kilowattheure, sulfure/nitrure/... parjure, murmure, trichosure,	-m	97%	faim,
			-non	97%
			-o	82%	météo, dactylo, dynamo, steno, magnéto, moto,
			-om	96%
			-r	89%	mer ,chair, minceur, douceur, froideur, grandeur, profondeur, odeur, largeur, valeur, fleur, couleur, soeur, peur, vapeur, erreur, horreur, cour, tour,
			-ron	100%
			-sme	100%
			-t	98%	forêt, nuit, dent, part, plupart,
			-taire	94%
			-ton	100%
			-tre	87%	fenêtre, huître, vitre, rencontre, montre, lettre,
			-u	97%	eau, peau ,vertu,
			-us	95%