Definite articles

In English there is only 1 definite article – ‘the‘

In French there are 4 – la, le, les and l’

Gender	Singular	Plural
Masculine	le, l’	les
Feminine	la, l’	les

All French nouns are either feminine or masculine and it’s important to get the gender correct – great pleasure is taken in making corrections when a foreigner uses ‘la‘ instead of ‘le‘.

The definitive article l’ is used in place of le or la in front of nouns that begin with a vowel (a, e, i, o, u, y)

e.g. l’eau (masculine noun meaning water)

l’avion (feminine noun meaning plane)

l’ is also used with an unaspirated h – this means an h that is not pronounced, a bit like a French version of the English silent k in words like knee, knife and knight

e.g. l’heure (hour)

l’histoire (history)

However when you have an aspirated h – you’ve guessed it, an h that is pronounced – you must use le or la

e.g. le handicap (handicap)

la hausse (rise)

les is used when you are talking about plural nouns

e.g. les chiens (dogs)

les robes (dresses)

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