[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac]
Well, I think I’ve finally figured this out. I think what clairobscur is indicating is that words that end similarly are likely to have the same gender.
So in my example, “ajonc” is similar to the much more common “tronc,” and both are masculine. “Herse” ends like “averse,” and both are femininine. Valteron mentions “hôtel” as masculine, and it seems like most words ending in -el, (autel, pastel, rappel, etc.) are also masculine.
I’m sure the “rule” I’ve discovered has exceptions, but still, it seems to give you a big leg up over guessing.
I have to say, this is a revolutionary discovery for me. Now, you would think that a) somebody would have mentioned this to me before now, or b) I would have discovered it myself – but I guess our Anglo-Saxon prejudice against the gender system is so pronounced that we convince ourselves the whole thing is completely irrational.
[/QUOTE]
NO language is really rational, when you get right down to it. But here are a few encouraging facts for anyone learning French.
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After a while, you will get a “feeling” for the gender of nouns, and it will probably be because you will subconsciously “learn” that rule about endings. You will autmotically know that it is “**le nouveau ** gouvernement formé sous la nouvelle constitution.”
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French spelling (and this will knock you off your chair when you first hear it) is actually far, far more rational than English. While French is not totally phonetic like Spanish and German, its spelling generally much more phonetic than English. With all due respect to the beautiful language of Shakespeare and Milton, let’s face it. . . . . English spelling is a bloody mess. “i” before “e” except after “c” except for “weird” and “caffeine” and a few dozen other words. Silent “k” in front of “knife” and “knight”.
If I am not mistaken, English is the only major language using the Latin alphabet in which children have to spend about an hour a day for eight years to learn to spell half-way correctly. Spanish and German kids know how to spell very early in life because their languages are so phonetic.
Now, French is not perfectly phonetic. It has silent letters, like the “ent” endings in the third person plural or the silent “s” in “ils”. For example, “ils disent” is not pronounced “eelz deezent”. It is pronounced “ill deez”.
But at least these are “consistent” exceptions if you know what I mean.
So here is another big revelation that French students are not always aware of. French uses the same alphabet as English, but it has its own rules for the sounds that a group of letters produces. Once you learn those rules, reading and pronouncing French becomes much, much easier.
In English, for example, “oi” is usually pronounced “oy” as in “toil” or “spoil”.
But in French, “oi” is pronounced “wah” as in “moi” or “foi”.
In French, two l’s are generally prounounced like a “y”. I know without even looking it up that “maillon” (link in a chain) is spelled with an 'll" because it is pronounced “mah-yo(n)”. One “l” is generally pronounced like an “l” as in “militaire”. But “mille, million, milliard” and all the words derived from them like “millionaiire” are exceptions.
In French, one “s” is pronounced like a “z” unless it occurs at the beginning of a word or after an “n”. But “ss” is always pronounced like an “s”. For example, "soi, massif, silence, assurance, passion, passoire, mensuel and coussin (cushion) etc. are all “s” sounds. But cousin (cousin), maison, biscuit etc. are all pronounced as if the “s” were a “z”. Now there are always exceptions. Just like “bastion” being masculine in spite of its “ion” ending. Please do not waste time and space sending me exceptions. They exist, I know.
But once you get into the logic of French spelling and get the hang of its rules, once you get a feel for it all, you will be able to pick up a page of French and find it much much easier to read and to pronounce correctly.
Finally, a little story to cheer you up. Everybody thinks their own language is marvellously simple. When I learned German I was told by my teacher that German is simple! :dubious: It has masculine, feminine and neuter, and the adjectives and articles change according to their use in the sentence. For example, there are several different ways to say “a good man” depending on its use in the sentence.
A French friend of mine learning English once asked me what “isn’t it?” is all about in English. I explained that it is a way of asking the person if they agree with what you have just said. But if the verb is should, would, have, do, or be, then you say “shouldn’t he, wouldn’t we, hadn’t you (this form more common in England) didn’t you, or wasn’t she.” But if any other verb is involved, then you use “do” as in “he spoke well, didn’t he?”
My friend studied this for a while and then said “What a complicated language. Why not just say 'N’est-ce pas?” at the end of your statement?
(That’s the word I use to remember the gender rule now.) Also that most -aire words derive from the Latin ending -arium, which was a neuter form that translates into a masculine gender in French.
(That’s the word I use to remember the gender rule now.) Also that most -aire words derive from the Latin ending -arium, which was a neuter form that translates into a masculine gender in French.