Common Nouns: things and people like maison (house) and fille (daughter). They aren't capitalized.
Proper Nouns: specific people, geographic places, and sites such as les Alpes (the Alps). However, days, months, religions, and languages are not capitalized in French. Such include samedi (Saturday), janvier (January), le bouddhisme (Buddhism), le françai (French language).
Compound Nouns: two or more nouns combined. In French, the main idea noun comes first followed by the enhancing noun such as, la Tour Eiffel (the Eiffel Tower).
Common Nouns
- la ville (the city)
- le chef (the chef)
- l'île (the island)
- la pluie (the rain)
- la province (the province)
- le musée (the museum)
- le palais (the palace)
- la liberté (the liberty)
Proper Nouns
- Montréal (Montreal)
- Bocuse ([French chef Paul] Bocuse)
- la Martinique (Martinique)
- la Bretagne (Brittany)
- Québec (Quebec)
- le Louvre (the Louvre)
- l'Elysée (the Elysée [presidential palace])
- Bartholdi (Bartholdi [sculptor of the Statue of Liberty])
Compound Nouns
- les chutes du Niagara (Niagara Falls)
- l'auberge du Pont de Collonges (the Bridges of Collonges Inn)
- la mer des Caraïbes (the Caribbean Sea)
- le manteau de pluie (the raincoat)
- la ville de Québec (Quebec City)
- la pyramide du Louvre (the Louvre Pyramid)
- les Champs-Elysées (the Elysian Fields [an avenue in Paris])
- la statie de la Liberté (the Statue of Liberty)
+ Singular and Plural
- You can add an "s" to the end of a noun to make it plural, just like in English. But that "s" is usually not pronounced so to distinguish plural from singular in speech, a plural particle must be added before the noun. Observe: la maison (the house) v. les maisons (the houses)
- If the noun ends in -ou, -eu, or -eau, you add -x instead of -s.
- le genou (the knee) v. les genoux (the knees)
- le feu (the fire) v. les feux (the fires)
- le bureau (the desk) v. les bureaux (the desks)
- If the noun ends in -al you change -al to -aux to make it plural.
- le journal (the newspaper) v. les journaux (the newspapers)
- l'hôpital (the hospital) v. les hôpitaux (the hospitals)
- le cheval (the horse) v. le chevaux (the horses)
- If the nouns ends in an -s, -z, or -x, you don't add anything to it. In this case, the article tells people that the noun is plural.
- le fils (the son) v. les fils (the sons)
- le nez (the nose) v. les nez (the noses)
- l'epoux (the husband, spouse) v. les époux (the spouses, married couple)
+ Accent Marks
- l'accent aigu (the sharp accent): appears only over the letter 'e'. Resembles an 'a' in the word 'take' - le café (the cafe)
- l'accent grave (the grave accent): appears over 'e', 'a', or 'u'. however it affects sound only in the letter 'e'. Resembles an open 'eh' sound in the word 'set' - la mère (the mother)
- For 'a' and 'u', the accent distinguishes the meaning of the words that would otherwise spell the same way.
- l'accent circonflexe (the circumflex accent): appears over 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', and 'u'. It represents a letter (usually 's') that was dropped from the French word centuries ago but may still remain in the related English - l'hôpital (the hospital), le château (the castle), la forêt (the forest), l'intérêt (the interest)
- le tréma (dieresis): the accent mark indicates that back-to-back vowels are pronounces seperately from each other - naïf (naïve), Noël (Christmas)
- la cédille (the cedilla): indicates that you pronounce the 'c' as an 's'. If the letter 'c' does not have the cedilla under it and is followed by 'a', 'o', or 'u', then you pronounce it as you would the letter 'k' in 'can' - Commençons (Let's begin).
