What percentage of French nouns are feminine?

A 2005 study done by Roy Lyster of McGill University shows that “81 percent of feminine nouns and 80 percent of masculine nouns are rule governed, having endings that systematically predict their gender.” Quite simply, this means that if you know which word endings are typically masculine and which are typically …

Are all French words that end with e feminine?

The ending of a French noun often changes depending on whether it refers to a male or a female. Generally, words ending in -e are feminine and words ending in a consonant are masculine, though there are many exceptions to this rule.

What percent of French nouns are masculine?

001): 82.4\% for masculine nouns, 73.8\% for feminine nouns and 61.5\% for nouns which are both masculine and feminine. They chose the option ‘I don’t know’ for a very small percentage of the stimuli (3.3\% masculine, 3.4\% feminine, 1.6\% both masculine and feminine), suggesting they were confident.

What is the feminine noun for merci in French?

You still see the old meaning in expressions like être à la merci de l’orage (at the mercy of the storm) – in which case merci is feminine. As for the ‘thanks’ meaning, in medieval times they would say: ‘grand merci! ‘ – referring to the ‘great favour’ someone had done you (you can still say ‘un grand merci’).

How do you use LE and LA in French?

With masculine singular nouns → use le. With feminine singular nouns → use la. With nouns starting with a vowel, most nouns beginning with h and the French word y → use l’. With plural nouns → use les.

Are there more masculine or feminine nouns in French?

In French all nouns will be either masculine or feminine and there is no neutral. There are no real rules or logic to help you decide which article to use, statistically there are more masculine than feminine nouns. Basically you will have to learn the gender by heart.