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Lesson 8A1

Family

परिवार

French nouns carry grammatical gender — but only two, masculine and feminine, not three. Hindi already trained you for this: every Hindi noun is either पुल्लिंग (masculine) or स्त्रीलिंग (feminine), so the very idea of grammatical gender won't be new. What's new is which nouns get which gender in French — for family words the two languages line up neatly, but French gender doesn't always match Hindi's instincts once you move beyond people, so pay attention to the specific assignments as you go.

Grammar Comparison

व्याकरण तुलना

le/la for people ≈ Hindi's natural-gender nouns

French

le père (masc.) / la mère (fem.)

Hindi

पिता (पुल्लिंग) / माता (स्त्रीलिंग)

French has only masculine and feminine, not three genders. For family words this is easy: le/un for men, la/une for women — exactly matching the pattern you already know from Hindi, where पिता is पुल्लिंग (masculine) and माता is स्त्रीलिंग (feminine) simply because of the person's biological sex. The harder part comes later — French also genders inanimate objects (la table, le livre) with no biological logic at all, much the way Hindi genders inanimate nouns like मेज़ (feminine) or किताब (feminine) without any natural reason behind it — so don't expect every French gender assignment to feel as obvious as these family words do.

Vocabulary

शब्दावली

FrenchPronunciationHindiEnglish
la mèrelah mairमाताmātāmother
le pèreluh pairपिताpitāfather
le frèreluh frairभाईbhāībrother
la sœurlah suhrबहनbahansister
la grand-mèrelah grahn-mairदादी / नानीdādī / nānīgrandmother
le grand-pèreluh grahn-pairदादा / नानाdādā / nānāgrandfather
le filsluh feesबेटाbeṭāson
la fillelah feeबेटीbeṭīdaughter