How to memorise noun genders in French, Spanish and Italian
Memorising noun genders is something that many language learners struggle with. Remembering genders becomes even more difficult when they don’t correspond to the genders in your own language (if your language is one that has genders).
For example, in French the word ‘window’ (fenêtre) is feminine and in German it’s neutral (Fenster). Or the word ‘wall’ – the French ‘mur’ is masculine and the Polish ‘ściana’ is feminine.
Sometimes, memorising genders based on your native language can be helpful. For example, the Spanish ‘camisa’ and the Polish ‘koszula’ (shirt) are both feminine. However, memorising noun genders this way can also be very misleading. Below, I’m going to give you three alternative ways of memorising noun genders in three languages – French, Spanish and Italian.
To achieve the best results, I would recommend that you use all three at the same time.
1. Memorise nouns with adjectives
This technique involves memorising each new noun that you’re learning together with an adjective that describes that noun in some way.
To use this technique, you will need to use adjectives which change with gender. So, for example, if you’re learning French, ‘court/courte’ is one of such adjectives – the ‘e’ at the end is a marker of the feminine gender. On the other hand, the adjective ‘rouge’ wouldn’t work because it doesn’t change according to gender (i.e. it’s ‘une vache rouge’ and ‘un vélo rouge’).
When memorising your nouns, memorise the adjective that goes with it and try to visualise it. Even better – make drawings or use photos and save them in your vocabulary notebook. For example:
‘Une petite vache’
Photo: Elizabeth Gomm
‘El camión negro’
Photo: Josh
2. Memorise nouns with passive verbs
This technique is very similar to the one above except it involves memorising the nouns you’re learning with verbs in the past participle/passive form which again contain clear markers of gender. For example, in Italian, the verb ‘scritto/scritta’ would work because of the ‘o/a’ marker of gender.
For example:
‘La scuola è chiusa’
Again, try to visualise the situation when memorising the phrase and use photos/drawings in your vocabulary notebook.
3. Create a noun story
The third method involves coming up with a story that involves a man/boy or a woman/girl. The man/boy will symbolise the masculine gender and the woman/girl the feminine gender.
As I said at the top of this post, for best results you should combine the three techniques together. So, once you’ve picked an adjective and a passive verb you’d like to learn your word with, create a story that involves either a man or a woman.
The story can be as short as one sentence but make sure you visualise it in your head when saying it/writing it down.
For example:
‘Ma soeur a acheté une petite bouteille qui est maintenant ouverte.’
Photo: Marten Persson
Visualise the scene – the sister who brings the little bottle of orange juice to the kitchen and opens it. Visualising it that way will help the new words stick!
Good luck with memorising noun genders and let me know how you get on!
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Agnieszka