Regular Feminine and Plural Nouns

French nouns
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Noms féminins et pluriels

Like English nouns, most French nouns have singular and plural forms. In addition, French nouns referring to people and animals often have different masculine and feminine forms, which means that these nouns can have up to four forms:

masculine singular   masculine plural
feminine singular   feminine plural

Feminine and/or plural endings are added to the default masculine singular form. For regular nouns, these endings are -e for feminine and -s for plural.

Par exemple…

un étudiant (student)

un étudiant   des étudiants
une étudiante   des étudiantes

When the default form of the noun ends in -s, -x, or -z, the singular and plural forms are the same.

Par exemple…

une brebis   des brebis   ewe(s)
un choix   des choix   choice(s)
un nez   des nez   nose(s)

When the default form of the noun ends in -e, the masculine and feminine forms are the same.

Par exemple…

un artiste (artist)

un artiste   des artistes
une artiste   des artistes

A few nouns have completely different masculine and feminine equivalents.

Par exemple…

un homme
man
  une femme
woman
un garçon
boy
  une fille
girl
un taureau
bull
  une vache
cow

And there are some irregular feminine and plural patterns.

 French nouns and adjectives

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French nouns - Noms

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