Gender and the article: le, la, l', un, une

French nouns have grammatical gender. English does not mark nouns in the same way, so the article must be learned with the noun: “le livre”, “la table”, “l’ami”, “l’amie”.

So the word is learnt with its article attached. Not “table = table”, but “table = une table”. The article is not decoration added later: it is part of what has to be memorised, like the spelling.

There are two series. The definite one —“le”, “la”, “les”— points at something already identified. The indefinite one —“un”, “une”, “des”— introduces something for the first time. In the plural, “les” covers both genders, and so does “des”.

And one rule does hold every time: before a vowel or a mute “h”, “le” and “la” both become “l'”. “L'ami”, “l'amie”, “l'hôtel”, “l'heure”. At that point the article stops telling you the gender, which is why it pays to have learnt it beforehand.

Endings give hints, not certainties. Words in “-tion”, “-té” and “-ette” tend to be feminine; those in “-age”, “-ment” and “-eau” tend to be masculine. Use them to guess, not to stop learning the article.