I know that for a male to say that he is french, we use francais, and for a female, we use francaise.
But when a female says that she speaks french, do we use francaise as in Je parle francaise?
And when a female says that she likes French music, do we use francaise as in J'aime la musique francaise?
Salut, Mischa! Thank you for using the Jiskha Homework Help Forum. You are correct with the first sentence IF you add the necessary accent mark: français and française.
With the 2nd sentence, it does not matter WHO says it (male or female, singular or plural) because what is understood is "the French language" so it is simply "français." (le français)
With the 3rd sentence, what matters is that the noun "la musique" is feminine and that is why the adjectival form is "française."
NOTE: The adjective modifies the noun in number (singular/plural) and gender (masculine/feminine) and has nothing to do with the subject (Je, J', tu, il, elle, on, nous, vous, ils, elles.)
These were good questions! Please feel free to let us know anytime something seems confusing to you.
Mme
Thanks. I have another question. This sentence comes straight out of my textbook.
Il aime la danse, la musique.
Il is he, so why would it not be le danse, le musique?
Salut autre fois! Yes, the subject is Il = he. The verb is aime = likes, does like. Now the objects, or what he likes, are simply nouns. When you learn a noun in French, be sure to learn the definite article that goes with it. (Le, la are easy to determine as masculine, feminine. L' is more difficult because you have to know the gender of the noun. L'argent is masculine while l'histoire is feminine. Les simply denotes a plural noun.
The word for dance is "la danse" and for music is "la musique." The gender can NOT be changed for a noun. After you have studied French a while, you will begin to see the "pattern" for masculine vs. feminine nouns.
My guess is that this is your first year of French so I don't want to give you too much in the way of explanation, but when you are ready for the "rules" as to whether or not a noun is masculine or feminine, let me know!
Mme
P.S. If I know the name of your textbook, there are often sites online from that publisher with more information to help you.
o...so there's nothing like le musique or le danse. I just have to remember the nouns, I get it now, thanks.
And my textbook is called initial 1.
And also, if a male says that he likes French music, so we also use francaise as in J'aime la musique francaise?
Yes, indeed! Just please remember the accent mark = française or it will NOT be totally correct!
I remember that accent mark, I just don't know how to type it in. =)
Thanks again.
Unfortunately, I find next to nothing about your textbook Initial I except that is le livre de l'élève (student's book) and published by CLE International. Hopefully you got the CD that goes with it? This is not a text I am familiar with.
In order to tell you how to make the accent marks, I need to know the following:
1. Do you have a PC or a MAC.
2. You have Windows or not?
Once I know that I can send you the chart for accents on the computer. It's past my bedtime so I hope you are sleeping! Dors bien!
Mme