Salut mes chers amis!
Hello my dear friends! I believe you are all doing very good, and hope the class has been of immense help to you.
This time, we will be looking into french articles. If you have understood the lesson on gender of french nouns very well, then you'll have little or no challenge with understanding the french articles.
Have you or you may have noticed that in french language, nouns don't exist in isolation. They often have a small variable word that is placed before them to indicate their gender (masculine/feminine) and number (singular/plural).
In some cases, this small variable word may not be translated in English just like in "La chaise - Chair". It may not necessarily be translated as "the chair" except for specificity as it is in the case of definite articles.
We will be treating 2 different types of articles in french which are: definite articles (les articles définis) and indefinite articles (les articles indéfinis).
Our focus for today is going to be on the first which is "definite article". Read carefully and take note where necessary.
1. Definite article (l'article défini):
A definite article is an article that introduces a noun and specifies it as the particular noun that is being considered. It shows precision about a particular noun in question. In english language, the only definite article we have is "THE". So, if i say "go call me the boy" you can be sure of whom to call because the article attached to "boy" is specific and precise. Gotten? Comprenez? ( do you get It?)
There are 4 types of definite articles in french language. Reason being that the definite article a word carries is determined by its gender (masculine/féminine) and its number (singular or plural).
The 4 definite articles in french are :LE, LA,L' and LES
Kindly note that all these four mean only one thing in english language which is "THE".
A. Le (the)
This is used for MASCULINE singular nouns.
Examples: Le garçon - the boy
Le père - the father
Le stylo - the Biro
Le professeur - the teacher
Le tableau - the board
B. La (the)
This is used in front of FEMININE singular nouns.
Examples: La femme - the woman
La fille - the girl
La chaise - the chair
La table - the table
La ville - the city
C. L' (the)
This is used for MASCULINE and FEMININE singular nouns that start with a, e, i, o, u or a silent h.
Examples:
L'école - the school
L'orange - the orange
L'homme - the man
L'immeuble - the building
L'université - the University
D. Les (the)
This is used for both MASCULINE AND FEMININE PLURAL NOUNS
This means as long as the noun is a plural noun you do not need to be worried about the gender of the noun.
What can probably bring some worries here would be how to recognize a plural noun. We will discuss that in another class. However, for the sake of this class (putting the beginners into consideration) permit me to say that once you find an "s" at the end of a word, Such a word is in plural form. Although there may be some cases that will be differents just as it is in english.
E.g. Boy- boys but man - men and not "mans". Comprenez!
That being said, let us quickly see some examples in line with our focus for today.
Examples: Les garçons - the boys
Les stylos - the biros
Les professeurs - the teachers
Les femmes - the women
Les filles - the girls
Les tables - the tables
Les écoles - the schools
Les hommes - the men
Les oranges - the oranges
We shall stop here for today. The best way to keep Learning is not quitting learning.
So, till we meet again don't stop learning and increasing in knowledge.
Find yourself a better means of adding practical sessions to the theories you Hey here.
Feel free to contact us for any question or extra help to improve on your learning of french language.
Awodirepo O.
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