French: adjective agreement, part1

Self-tutoring about French: the tutor mentions how French adjectives change according to the nouns they describe.

The following is by my understanding.

In English, it’s a blue pencil, a blue car, or some blue cars. The adjective blue doesn’t change, no matter what it describes.

In French, there is adjective agreement, meaning the adjective changes spelling according to the noun it describes:

Un crayon bleu. (A blue pencil: pencil is masculine.)

Les crayons bleus. (The blue pencils.)

Une auto bleue. (A blue car: car is feminine.)

Les autos bleues. (The blue cars.)

So, as shown above, a French adjective will change its ending depending on whether the noun it describes is masculine or feminine, as well as whether it’s singular or plural.

Bleu is a regular adjective: as such, it adds an e for feminine, and s for plural.

In spoken French, especially to an Anglophone, the difference in pronunciation due to adjective agreement can be subtle, especially with regular adjectives.

With irregular adjectives, however, the change in spelling between masculine or feminine, singular or plural, can be more significant, changing the adjective’s pronunciation enough that it sounds like a different word.

I hope to follow up about irregular adjectives in some future posts.

Source:

Kenney,M., Burville,V., Hickox,B., Hill,J., Potter,C. (1977). Passport Français 8: Bonne Chance! D.C. Heath Canada Ltd.

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