À l'école (At school)
Primary 5 · French
À l'école (At school)
Lesson 1 of 3
12 min
Let's begin
The bell rings. Uwase sits down, opens her bag and puts her things on the desk: a book, an exercise book, a pen, a ruler.
Every one of those things has a French name — and a tiny word that always travels with it. Miss that tiny word and your French sounds wrong, even when the name is right.
Today you learn both: the names, and the little words un, une and des.
Uwase picks up her pen and says:
C'est un stylo. — It is a pen.
Now she picks up her ruler:
C'est une règle. — It is a ruler.
Look carefully. Both sentences mean “It is a…”. But one uses un and the other uses une. Why?
Every French noun belongs to one of two families: masculine or feminine. This has nothing to do with boys and girls — a pen is not a boy and a ruler is not a girl! It is simply the family the word was born into, and you cannot tell by looking at the object.
Because you cannot guess the family, you learn the little word together with the noun, every single time. Do not learn stylo. Learn un stylo.
Masculine — they take un
Feminine — they take une
Mugisha opens his bag. Inside there are three exercise books, not one. He says:
Ce sont des cahiers. — They are exercise books.
des means “some”, and it is the friendliest word in this lesson: it works for both families. Masculine or feminine, once there is more than one thing, you use des and you add -s to the noun.
| One | More than one |
|---|---|
| un stylo | des stylos |
| un livre | des livres |
| une gomme | des gommes |
| une chaise | des chaises |
Here is the surprise: that -s is silent. stylo and stylos sound exactly the same. So what tells a listener that there is more than one? The little word in front: uh stee-LOH (one) or day stee-LOH (several). The little word does all the work.
il y a means “there is” and also “there are” (say: eel-ya). It never changes. One phrase, two jobs.
Worked example
Keza wants to say: In my bag there is a book, a pencil case and some pencils.
Step 1 Start with the frame: Dans mon sac, il y a… (“In my bag, there is…”)
Step 2 A book. livre is in the un family → un livre.
Step 3 A pencil case. trousse is in the une family → une trousse.
Step 4 Pencils — more than one → des crayons, with the silent -s.
Step 5 Join them with et (and) and read it back:
Dans mon sac, il y a un livre, une trousse et des crayons.
Qu'est-ce que c'est ? (kess-kuh-SAY) — What is it?
— Qu'est-ce que c'est ?
— C'est une gomme.
If you are pointing at more than one thing, C'est becomes Ce sont:
— Qu'est-ce que c'est ?
— Ce sont des livres.
Tip
Glue the little word on
When you write a new French noun in your notebook, never write it alone. Write une gomme, not gomme. Say it as if it were one long word: unegomme, uncahier, unefenêtre. Then the family comes back to you automatically, because you never learned the word without it.
To hear the difference: un is short and comes down your nose (uh). une is longer, with your lips pushed forward (ün). des sounds like the English word day.
Write your own answer first, then tap Show answer to check.
Say “It is a book” in French.
Answer: C'est un livre. — livre is masculine, so it takes un.
Fill in un or une: ___ règle, ___ cahier, ___ fenêtre, ___ crayon.
Answer: une règle, un cahier, une fenêtre, un crayon. Only règle and fenêtre are in the feminine family.
Make it plural: un stylo → ?
Answer: des stylos. The word un becomes des, and the noun takes a silent -s.
Gatete has a pen and some books in his bag. Finish his sentence: Dans mon sac, il y a ___ .
Answer: Dans mon sac, il y a un stylo et des livres. One pen → un stylo. Several books → des livres.
Uwase wrote: « C'est un gomme. » What is wrong, and what should it be?
Answer: gomme is feminine, so un is the wrong family word. It should be C'est une gomme.
Look around the room you are sitting in right now. Name three things you can see, in French, with their little words.
Example answer: un tableau, une porte, des chaises. Yours may be different — as long as every noun brought its little word along, you did it right.
What you learned today
Quick check
Which one is right for a ruler?
