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Which is better to say in french language

Which is better to say in french language(la porte)or(le porte) and the same for(le tableau) or (la tableau) and why?

For learning: French
Base language: English
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Bella Mera
Jun 23, 2008
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La porte. (Le = masculine, La = feminine) Every word has a "gender" just like in German and Dutch for example.

Sometimes it's easy because it actually refers to a female. Compare:
Le delinquant = offender
La delinquante = offender (female)

In other cases you just have to learn whether it has "la" or "le". In Dutch you have "de" and "het" whereas in German it's even more complicated with "der", "die" and "das".

The second one is: "Le tableau"

I'm just taking a guess here, and I hope some native French can support this, but I think that you can basically look at the end of the word to check which particle is needed. However, I already noticed that there isn't really a rule for this. For example:

le métronome
la métropole
la minute
le miracle
le prodige
la myrrhe

So that seems pretty random, but words with "-eau" for example seem to have "le" most of the time. So I'm not entirely sure if there are any rules to go by. Hopefully some French native will elaborate on this a bit.

Good luck!

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HLRN
Jun 23, 2008
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hi!
1- we should say " la porte" and "le porte" is not correct, because in French "porte"( door) is a feminine word so we use the definit article "la" before it, the singular indefinit feminine article is "une" then we say "une porte" if it is not definit and "la porte" if it is mentioned before that is definit.
2- The same thing for "le tableau" (= board/ painting.. its meaning differs according to the context in which it is mentioned), that's a masculine word so it must be preceded by a musculine article (le: definit). The indefinit musculine article is "un", then we say "un tableau".
Now for the plural form: we say "les" for the two genders (les portes, les tableaux) when they are definit. And "des" also for the two genders ( des portes, des tableaux) if they are indefinit.
I hope you got the point.
Good luck

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ka English
Jun 23, 2008
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Hi,

French is my native language.

"I'm just taking a guess here, and I hope some native French can support this, but I think that you can basically look at the end of the word to check which particle is needed. However, I already noticed that there isn't really a rule for this."

There are no rules ... sometimes, I don't know myself if word is feminine or masculine. Because it can "sound like" feminine (It's case most of the time) but be masculine ...
The only solution is to train your "ear" (I know, it's not really nice :D)

<So that seems pretty random, but words with "-eau" for example seem to have "le" most of the time.>
That's correct ;) I'm thinging but I don't see word with "la" before a name with an end in "eau". :)

So, in conclusion :

La porte
Le tableau

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Xav_
Jun 24, 2008
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Hello,

I don't think I have much to add but there are at least two words ending with "eau" that are feminine : "eau" ("water") and "peau" ("skin"). It seems that those are only exceptions.

Regards.

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Damien
Jun 25, 2008
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