Les adjectifs

Diamond Doyle; Lisa A Luengo; Nick Taylor

Chapitre Deux

Les adjectifs

Exercice 2.7 - 2.12

Les adjectifs

Adjectives are words that describe nouns.
In French, they typically go AFTER the noun. They also must match the noun in gender and number, so there can be four forms of the adjective:

masculine singular
masculine plural
feminine singular
feminine plural

In the following example: Picasso-male, Sand-female (nom de plume), Woolf-female

Pablo Picasso, c’est un peintre connu. George Sand et Virginia Woolf, ce sont des auteures connues.

As a general rule:

The masculine singular form is the “base” form, and to make it plural, add “s.” To make it feminine, add “e.” To make it feminine and plural, add “e” and “s.” vert, verts, verte, vertes

When a word has both a figurative and literal meaning, think Figurative First for adjective placement:

un grand homme : a great man

un homme grand : a tall man

mon ancien ami : my former friend

mon ami ancien : my aged (ancient) friend

Placement:

Certain adjectives come before the noun. Think of the acronym BRAGS to help you remember:

Beauty (une belle fille)

Rank (le premier jour du trimestre)

Age (un jeune homme)

Good or bad (une bonne idée)

Size except for “grand” with people, see below (un grand problème).

There are some irregular adjectives that come before the noun. These have a fifth option, the masculine singular form before a vowel or the letter “h.” This form is pronounced the same as the feminine singular form, but is spelled differently.

In the following chart, there is an adjective in English with a space for five different forms of that same adjective in French in the masculine singular, masculine singular before a vowel or “h,” feminine singular, masculine plural, and feminine plural forms. Complete the chart by using a good resource to distinguish adjective endings, such as www.wordreference.com. The first has been done as an example.

Adjectives in English:

Masculine Singular

Masculine Singular before vowel/h

Feminine Singular

Masculine Plural

Feminine Plural

beautiful

beau

bel

belle

beaux

belles

new

crazy

old

soft

La pluralisation des adjectifs

Some general exceptions to the general rule of gender and number with adjectives:

If it ends in –e or –iste: don’t make gender changes, just pluralize by adding –s
If it ends in –e: there is no difference between masculine singular and feminine singular rouge
If it ends in a vowel plus “l” or “n”: double the consonant before adding “e” personnelle, bonne
If it ends in –er or –et: add an accent grave when adding “e” chère, complète
If it ends in –c: it becomes “che” in feminine forms blanche, blanches
If it ends in –eur: it generally becomes “euse” in feminine forms travailleuse, travailleuses;
in some cases, -eur becomes -ice in feminine forms acteur/actrice
If it ends in –eux: it becomes “euse” in feminine forms heureuse, heureuses
If it ends in –f: it becomes “ve” in feminine forms sportive, sportives
If it ends in –s: the masculine singular and plural forms are the same gris, gris

See the section on Gender and Number: La pluralisation (formerly page 33) for a refresher on pluralization rules, as they apply to pluralizing adjectives as well.