Basic Jobs & Occupations
Basic Jobs & Occupations
French job nouns usually come in matching masculine/feminine pairs, like French nouns generally — and there's a neat grammar shortcut for stating your job that drops the article English always requires.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
je suis + profession, no article
Je suis professeur. (I am a teacher.) — not Je suis un professeur.
I am a teacher. (English always needs the article 'a')
When stating an unmodified profession after être, French drops the indefinite article entirely: je suis médecin, not je suis un médecin. English does the opposite — it always requires an article before a profession ('I am A teacher', never 'I am teacher') — so dropping the un/une here is one of the most common early mistakes to correct, since the instinct to insert it is strong. The article comes back only if the profession is described with an adjective: Je suis un bon médecin ('I'm a good doctor'), which finally matches the English pattern again.
Most job nouns have distinct masculine/feminine forms
un boulanger / une boulangère (baker) — un cuisinier / une cuisinière (cook)
a baker, a cook — English job words never change for the worker's gender
Following the general pattern of French nouns, most professions have separate masculine and feminine forms, often built with the same -er/-ère or -eur/-euse suffix swaps you see in adjectives. English job titles are gender-invariable today (a baker is 'a baker' regardless of gender; older gendered pairs like 'actor/actress' are fading from use), so having to actively choose the correct gendered form is a new habit. A growing number of newer or gender-neutral professional titles (like un/une professeur, though une professeure is now increasingly standard) show ongoing change — France's language authorities have been gradually feminizing job titles that were historically masculine-only.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
| French | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| un boulanger / une boulangère | boo-lahn-ZHAY / boo-lahn-ZHAIR | baker |
| un professeur / une professeure | proh-feh-SUHR | teacher |
| un médecin | mayd-SAN | doctor |
| un avocat / une avocate | ah-voh-KAH / ah-voh-KAHT | lawyer |
| un ingénieur / une ingénieure | an-zhay-nee-UHR | engineer |
| un cuisinier / une cuisinière | kwee-zee-nee-AY / kwee-zee-nee-AIR | cook |
| un infirmier / une infirmière | an-feer-mee-AY / an-feer-mee-AIR | nurse |
| je suis... | zhuh swee | I am (a/an)... [profession, no article] |
| il/elle travaille comme... | eel/el trah-VAI kom | he/she works as a/an... |