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Adjectives come in handy in our everyday lives. I used two in that sentence alone! To speak French fluently, you\u2019ll need to describe all kinds of things, from your food and drink to your job or your best friend. There are all kinds of French adjectives, and all kinds of rules to follow when using them. Let\u2019s delve in\u2026<\/p>\n
When learning a language we learn to describe people quite early on, so to begin, you should be able to describe yourself in French using adjectives.<\/p>\n
Here are just a few examples using the verbs avoir<\/em><\/a> and \u00eatre<\/em><\/a>\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n Describing a person in French isn\u2019t something we tend to do every day. However, French adjectives to describe personality and mood are far more commonly used.<\/p>\n Here are a few examples:<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve already learned a bit of French, then you\u2019ll already know about the dreaded feminine and masculine words and you might have even heard of adjective agreement. French adjectives must correspond to the person speaking, so a man is \u201cgrand\u201d (tall) while a woman is \u201cgrande\u201d. Adding the \u2018e\u2019 makes it a feminine adjective.<\/p>\n This might sound reasonably easy, but the French also have masculine and feminine objects! Recognizing the gender of a word is something that you will learn over time, sometimes there are rules and sometimes you just have to know what\u2019s feminine and what\u2019s masculine. Nobody said learning a language was easy!<\/p>\n Here are a few examples of French adjectives (masculine and feminine) with nouns that you might already know:<\/p>\n Here is a list of the most common French describing words, and their feminine equivalents:<\/p>\n When a word ends in a vowel then a consonant, we must double the last letter before adding the \u2018e\u2019. For example: bon\/bonne, gentil\/gentille.<\/p>\n Note: Some adjectives change completely when they become feminine. For example, as you saw above, \u201cbeau\u201d becomes \u201cbelle\u201d.<\/p>\n Some adjectives don\u2019t have a feminine equivalent. Many of these are adjectives that already end in the letter \u2018e\u2019. Here are some common examples of adjectives that stay the same for both genders:<\/p>\n These adjectives don\u2019t have a feminine equivalents, however they can still be transformed into plural…<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve mastered the masculine and feminine, you need to get your head around the French adjective agreement for plural nouns. Simply put, when we add an \u2018s\u2019 to the noun to make it plural, we need to add an \u2018s\u2019 to the adjective too.<\/p>\n Of course, this is French we\u2019re talking about, and things are never as straightforward as one might hope! We\u2019ve seen the feminine, we\u2019ve seen the plural, and now we need to combine both to create the feminine plural.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a recap of when to use adjective agreement with the word \u201cpetit\u201d:<\/p>\n When using a plural of both masculine and feminine objects, or talking about a group of both males and females, the default is always masculine (eg. les petits enfants).<\/p>\n Once you can understand the French plural adjectives, feminine adjectives and even the feminine plural, and you think that French might not be too hard after all, we\u2019re going to add one more complication into the mix. Invariable adjectives. These are a small group of adjectives that DO NOT change, therefore they have neither a feminine form nor a plural form. Don\u2019t be afraid, there\u2019s an easy way to remember which adjectives fall into this category\u2026<\/p>\n Colors with two meanings. Colors are of course adjectives, and when the name of the color is derived from a flower, fruit, animal or even metal, then the adjective is invariable. Here are the most common invariable colors along with the noun they derive from:<\/p>\n The most common exceptions to this rule are rose<\/em> (color: pink, noun: rose flower), fauve<\/em> (color: fawn\/tawny, noun: big cat or wild animal) and mauve<\/em> (color: mauve, noun: mallow flower).<\/p>\n Example:<\/p>\n Other adjectives that don\u2019t follow the French rules are the ones that simply aren\u2019t French. Similar to many other languages, French borrows words from different languages and incorporates them into its own vocabulary. When used in French, these foreign adjectives are invariable.<\/p>\n Examples:<\/p>\n Here is a quick exercise where all of the adjectives have been written in the masculine singular form. You need to decide if the adjectives (written in bold) should be changed to feminine, plural or feminine plural.<\/p>\n\n
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<\/a>Feminine and Masculine<\/h2>\n
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<\/a>List of French adjectives \u2013 masculine and feminine<\/h2>\n
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<\/a>Plural<\/h2>\n
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<\/a>Invariable adjectives<\/h2>\n
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<\/a>Time to practice!<\/h2>\n