You are starting to understand when to use le and when to use la. A definite article refers to a specific noun—the dog, the city, the boy. And you choose the indefinite article in French based on the gender of the noun. Le is used for masculine nouns like le chien and le garçon. La is used for feminine nouns like la personne and la fille.
Here’s where it gets a little more complicated. In French, definite articles sometimes change, based on the letter the noun begins with. If a noun begins with a vowel or a silent h, you use l’ instead of le or la. For example, the French word ami-- friend --refers to a friend who is a boy. Because ami starts with a vowel, you’ll use l’ instead of le: l’ami. A female friend is amie in French, and it also uses l’ : l’amie. When you write your vocabulary lists, make sure to write the gender of nouns like this:
For example:
L’ami (m)
L’amie (f)
You might have noticed that the French word for a female friend has an extra e at the end. That extra e is a clue that this version of “friend” is feminine. It won’t always be that easy, though, to recognize the gender of a noun. Many feminine versions of nouns do not end in e!
Question
How do you know whether a noun that uses l’ is masculine or feminine?
Sometimes there are clues, like an extra “e”, but you should also memorize the gender just in case.
