French Language Question

Le_Petit_Lapin · 27 Feb 2009 at 18:47

Which of these is correct?

Bonne anniversaire!

Bon anniversaire!

:confused:

Google's being useless for this one.

Jotun · 27 Feb 2009 at 19:16

Bon for a guy, bonne for a girl.

It's been a while since I spoke any French but I believe that's right.

Helios1234 · 27 Feb 2009 at 19:16

Bon annniversaire since anniversaire is masculine. Alternatively say Joyeux Anniversaire.

Even if it was feminine, it would still be bon or else you'd have 2 vowels.

POB · 27 Feb 2009 at 19:21

Is there an easy way to know the sex of words in French or is it case of remembering every words sex?

Helios1234 · 27 Feb 2009 at 19:23

http://dictionary.reverso.net/

Visionary · 27 Feb 2009 at 19:25

POB said:
Is there an easy way to know the sex of words in French or is it case of remembering every words sex?

There are a few rules but with some exceptions to them.

e.g. most words ending in -tion are feminine, for example, la revolution, la nation, la selection.

DB_SamX · 27 Feb 2009 at 20:07

Helios1234 said:
Bon annniversaire since anniversaire is masculine. Alternatively say Joyeux Anniversaire.

Even if it was feminine, it would still be bon or else you'd have 2 vowels.

+1

Le_Petit_Lapin · 27 Feb 2009 at 20:08

Cheers!

Never could get my head round why words need to have a sex.

qwerty · 27 Feb 2009 at 20:33

Le_Petit_Lapin said:
Cheers!

Never could get my head round why words need to have a sex.

It's just confusing that we call it gender and use masculine, feminine (and neuter) to describe words. Basically all nouns are arranged into 1,2,3 or more groups to make a language tidy (that's the simple explanation

) and we happen to label the groups masc, fem, neuter instead of 1,2,3 or A,B,C or red, blue, yellow, or tom, dick, harry.

There is very, very little correlation between gender and meaning in any language.

Greenlizard0 · 27 Feb 2009 at 20:39

It makes our language easier to grasp to a certain level, and confers the advantage that unlike French school children we don't have to slog at it for years.

They learn French in a way that we don't even touch English...and..well...I'm starting to think it shows..

Le_Petit_Lapin · 27 Feb 2009 at 20:43

qwerty said:
It's just confusing that we call it gender and use masculine, feminine (and neuter) to describe words. Basically all nouns are arranged into 1,2,3 or more groups to make a language tidy (that's the simple explanation ) and we happen to label the groups masc, fem, neuter instead of 1,2,3 or A,B,C or red, blue, yellow, or tom, dick, harry.

There is very, very little correlation between gender and meaning in any language.

That made about no sense to me, I never could gather a whole lot of interest up to pay attention in English class either.