French: irregular adjectives, part 1

Self-tutoring about French: the tutor mentions irregular adjectives.

The following is by my understanding.

As I mention in my post from Sept 27, 2026, adjectives in English don’t change according to the nouns they describe. In contrast, in French they do: it’s called agreement.

Typical agreement might mean adding an -e to the adjective if it describes a feminine noun, or -s for plural, or -es for feminine plural.

However, some French adjectives, for agreement with nouns, might change more than just adding -e, -s, or -es. One example is blanc (white), which adds -he for feminine. Therefore, we have un crayon blanc (a white pencil: pencil is masculine) but une voiture blanche (a white car: car is feminine). A listener will notice that blanc and blanche sound different as well.

There are numerous other examples of irregular adjectives in French; hopefully I will visit some in future posts. The concept that they exist is perhaps the most important idea, so one knows to watch out for them.

Source:

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

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.