Adjective Agreement & Position
Adjective Agreement & Position
French adjectives change their spelling to match the noun's gender and number — a genuinely new skill for English speakers, since English adjectives like 'good' never change no matter what they describe.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
The regular pattern: +e for feminine, +s for plural
grand → grande (fem.) → grands (masc. pl.) → grandes (fem. pl.)
big/tall (masc.) → big/tall (fem.) → big/tall (masc. pl.) → big/tall (fem. pl.)
Most adjectives add -e to form the feminine (if they don't already end in -e) and -s to form the plural. English adjectives are completely invariant, so this agreement layer has no shortcut — but the regular pattern at least is very mechanical once you've internalized it: petit → petite → petits → petites.
Common irregular patterns
heureux → heureuse, actif → active, bon → bonne, beau/bel → belle, vieux/vieil → vieille
happy, active, good, handsome/beautiful, old
A set of endings has predictable irregular feminine forms: -eux → -euse (heureux → heureuse), -if → -ive (actif → active), -on → -onne (bon → bonne). beau ('handsome/beautiful') and vieux ('old') are more irregular still, and both have a special masculine form (bel, vieil) used only before a vowel-starting masculine noun: un bel homme, un vieil ami.
Most adjectives follow the noun — a few (BAGS) come before
une voiture rouge (a red car) but un joli garçon (a pretty boy)
a red car, a pretty boy
The default position for French adjectives is after the noun (une voiture rouge), unlike English, which always puts adjectives before the noun ('a red car'). A short list of very common adjectives break this rule and go before the noun instead — remembered with the acronym BAGS: Beauty (joli, beau), Age (jeune, vieux, nouveau), Goodness (bon, mauvais), Size (grand, petit, gros) — these are the only cases where French word order actually matches the English default.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
| French | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| grand / grande | grahn / grahnd | big / tall (masc./fem.) |
| heureux / heureuse | uh-RUH / uh-RUHZ | happy (masc./fem.) |
| actif / active | ak-TEEF / ak-TEEV | active (masc./fem.) |
| bon / bonne | bohn / bun | good (masc./fem.) |
| beau / belle / bel | boh / bel / bel | handsome, beautiful (masc./fem./masc. before vowel) |
| vieux / vieille / vieil | vyuh / vyay / vyay | old (masc./fem./masc. before vowel) |
| nouveau / nouvelle / nouvel | noo-VOH / noo-VEL / noo-VEL | new (masc./fem./masc. before vowel) |
| un joli garçon | uhn zho-LEE gar-SOHN | a pretty boy |
| une voiture rouge | ewn vwah-tewr roozh | a red car |