Féminin ou Masculin?

Salut!

Today, I am going to talk about a basic but difficult grammar point in French - GENDER!

When I first learn French, I found this grammar aspect crazy. I was like, "Who would want to know if a table is feminin?!" and more importantly (and desperately), "Mon Dieu! How can I remember the gender of a table?! Ce n'est pas possible!" Yes, it was difficult... as there is no such thing in the two languages that I master - Chinese and English. 

Sadly, I still make random guesses in tests and exams... but there are rules:

1. 75% of the nouns that end with "e" are féminin. (Yes, 75% only.) How about the remaining 25%? Some of them are masculin as they come from other languages.

ex. "le théâtre" is from Italian.

2. Most words from other languages are masculin. However, Italian ones are exceptions. Those ending with "o" are masculin while "a" féminin. 

ex. "le piano"     "la pizza"

3. Words with the following endings are usually masculin:

-age  =>  le fromage

-al  =>  un animal

-ier  =>  le pommier

-isme  =>  le tourisme

-ment  =>  le gouvernement

-oir  =>  le couloir

4. Words with the following endings are usually féminin:

-ance  =>  la confiance

-ence  =>  la patience

-ée  => la penée

-eur  =>  la chaleur

-ie  =>  la philosophie

-ion / sion / tion  =>  la passion

-xion  =>  la réflexion

-té  => la beauté

-ure  =>  la confiture

Unfortunately, the rules above are just for reference. There are always exceptions in French. Anyway, I still find these rules useful. At least, I can get the answers correct more easily with the help of these rules.

À bientôt!