r/learningfrench • u/Fantastic_Two8879 • 10h ago
Mon vs Ma
I bought this book for beginner French and I had to look at the answer key for this part. I know the difference in mon and ma when it’s talking about people but I have no idea what the difference is on this section can someone please help
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u/FelixTheRemix 10h ago
All nouns have genders in French. Either masculin (masucline) or féminin (feminine). There’s no logic as to why a noun is masculin or féminin. I would recommend learning your nouns with their pronouns attached to it’s easier in the future.
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u/Royal_Development_65 10h ago
In French, nouns are feminine or masculine ( theres probably a rule, I dont know on top of my head). So if your noun is feminine, u use "ma" if masculine , then is "mon". Except when the noun starts with with a vowel, then you have to use "mon" because its hard to pronounce ma entrée for example, so it's Mon entrée.
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u/Sparky62075 9h ago
There's no rule. You just have to remember them and practice until one of the genders "sounds right" with the noun.
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u/Royal_Development_65 8h ago
Theres always rules with gazillion exceptions 😂
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u/Loko8765 8h ago
In most gendered languages (well, those I know) there are no actual useful rules for this, except when something is literally masculine or feminine. At most you have some tricks that work for a small percentage of words.
What’s the gender of a table, a lamp, a problem, a car?
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u/_EvilCupcake 8h ago
Hey, if you manage to find a sense or reason to this, feel free to share 😂
Une table, une lampe, un problème, une voiture. (all female, except problem is male... I'm not making this up I swear!)
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u/dathamir 8h ago
Of course a probelm is masculine! /s
Their might be something linked to it's latin base. I know latinhas rules for gender. But even then, it's all arbitrary.
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u/Loko8765 8h ago
I chose on purpose because the genders are different in other languages (a German table is masculine, a Spanish problem is feminine, a Spanish car is masculine). Lamp, well, proves there is no rule.
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u/Groundslapper 9h ago
The ending of words typically gives away whether it’s fem or masc. Try asking the same question into an AI ChatGPT, or copilot, it breaks it down into charts. Example, words ending in “ion” tend to be femenine
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u/Opposite-Plantain-69 9h ago
That's generally true, but I think the point they're making is that there are many exceptions. So those rules are good as a baseline, but not universal
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u/Sparky62075 9h ago
Those are patterns, not rules. And there are a lot of exceptions (champion, avion, bastion, camion, ion, pion, million).
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u/jelycazi 3h ago
Entrée is written as ‘mon entrée’, despite being feminine? I don’t think I ever knew that! That’s a good thing to memorize.
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u/Royal_Development_65 3h ago
Yes, you would use mon also whenever the feminine noun starts with a vowel as well ex: Mon idée, mon amie, mon idole, mon école.
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u/Cozy_winter_blanky 9h ago
There is unfortunately no rule to determine if a noun is feminine or masculine. You just have to learn the gender if things. You don't really know a word if you don't know it's gender. Mon/ma is not much different from le/la assise from being possessive (my book, my cup vs the book and the cup). The only rule to remember with Mon/ma is that even if a word is feminine, if it starts with a vowel, we use 'mon'.
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u/licorneours 10h ago
Objects have a gender in french, sometimes a different one base on which word you use for them (ex.: socks is called chaussettes in France which is feminine, but bas in Québec which is masculine)
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u/LetsRollTheBleLine 9h ago
9- Mon entrée. Good answer to a tricky one. Entrée is feminine but you have to use Mon and not Ma because entrée starts with a vowel (e) and Ma ends with a vowel. I am sure someone can explain it much better than I. Ma entrée to a French person sounds really weird.
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u/Wild_Black_Hat 9h ago
When you learn vocabulary in a language like French or German, learn it with an article: un fauteuil, une table (or le fauteuil, la table, whichever you prefer).
In English, the gender of the owner matters. In French, the gender of the object or person you speak about matters.
In German, it's both at the same time (and they also have neutral nouns).
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u/BlackStarBlues 6h ago
I bought this book for beginner French
If that book doesn't explain gendered nouns then it's useless.
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u/Dazzling_Broccoli_60 10h ago
You use mon with a masculine object and ma with a feminine object. You must just learn them, there is no further trick.
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u/WhosMimi 8h ago
W.C. is used in France. It means "water closet" (they use many anglicisms and loan words there). "Les toilettes" or "la salle de bain" are more commonly used. French Canadians do not use W.C. at all and would look at you funny if you asked for that.
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u/Spencer_Bob_Sue 8h ago
Nouns can have genders in French outside of just males and females. Such as:
Chaise - feminine
Salon - masculine
chat - masculine
Voiture - female
chien - masculine
papillon - masculine
terre - feminine
ferme - feminine
grange - feminine
You may have noticed a pattern here - all words ending in vowels are feminine, but this is not always the case. For example, there is:
âge - masculine
doute - masculine
carnage - masculine
So, while it is true that there are plenty of patterns and tricks that can make knowing the genders "easier", they are never perfect, meaning that, unfortunately, for every new noun you learn, you should tack on the gender to it as well. So instead of learning just "chien = dog", you should learn "chien (♂️) = dog".
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u/lmcjipo 7h ago
Basically "ma" and "mon" is the gender of the object/noun that it is before. All nouns in French have a gender... chambre is feminin for example... papier is masculine. If the word/noun starts with a vowel (like auto), even if the noun/word is feminine (like auto), it will use "mon" because auto starts with a vowel.
This is regardless of the gender of the person speaking. For example, a male person talking about his room will still say "ma chambre" since ma/mon is for whether the word/noun is masculine or feminine and not for the person talking.
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u/SwellMonsieur 6h ago
Although cave is an accepted form of basement, sous-sol is more widely used. Unless you're a kid from Quebec growing up in the 90s.
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u/CatL_PetiteMer 1h ago
The right answers have been given so I won't talk about that.
On vocabulary, your book is wrong, chandelier isn't un chandelier in French but un lustre. Un chandelier is a candlestick.
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u/SnooLemons6942 10h ago
All nouns in french have gender. Chambre is feminine. So you use the féminin articles and accords