French adjectives you need to know

Now that you’ve learned simple French phrases for beginners, you are starting to build more complex sentences. That’s when French adjectives come in! Adjectives will spice up your sentence and add a little detail that will make it great. Just like adding orange blossom water to your crêpes batter. In this article, we’ll tell you all about how to use adjectives, and their different forms. Read on!

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How to use adjectives in French

English adjectives are pretty straightforward whereas French adjectives reflect the gender and the number of the noun(s) they describe. That means one adjective can have four different forms depending on the noun they modify. They can be either: masculine, feminine, singular or plural. 

In general, the French adjectives come after the noun they describe, unlike the English adjectives. For example : A red car – Une voiture rouge

The form changes in adjectives

When you’re looking up an adjective in the dictionary, you’re likely to find the masculine singular form. But don’t worry, we will give you a list of French feminine adjectives as well!

That means you have to know the gender of the noun you are qualifying.

As a general rule, if you want to change a masculine adjective into a feminine one, you only have to add an -e at the end. If you want to change it from singular to plural, add an -s.

Easy, right? When the masculine adjective ends with an -e, it’s even easier because you don’t need to change anything!

Did you notice how close jeune (young) and jaune (yellow) are? Learn how to say the colors in French.

But of course, since it’s French we are talking about, there are other endings and variations!

Adjectives which double their last consonant

Some adjectives double their last consonant when they go from masculine to feminine. 

That’s the case for adjectives ending in -n, -l, -t and -s.

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Adjectives ending in -f

Masculine adjectives that end in -f will have a -ve ending in their feminine form.

Adjectives ending in -er

Masculine adjectives that end in -er will have a -ère ending in their feminine form.

Adjectives ending in -x

Masculine adjectives that end in -x will have a -se ending in their feminine form.

Adjectives used to describe people in French

Now that you’ve seen the most common endings for French adjectives, you can practice using them in sentences. 

How about French describing words to talk about a person? Below are ten of the most common adjectives to describe people in French, in their masculine and feminine forms and their translation, s’il vous plait!

Adjectives used to describe personality

Jacqueline Bisset said it herself: “Character contributes to beauty”! How would you describe your best friend and why they are, indeed, the best? I’m sure it’s not because they have shiny hair (though, it is appreciable), but because they have this particular trait that makes them themselves.

And here is a list of less positive adjectives (masculine and feminine) because, let’s face it, nobody is perfect!

Irregular French adjectives

I know we have already talked about irregular endings but how about irregular adjectives?

Some adjectives in French have an irregular form in the feminine. Unfortunately, they are quite common. Otherwise, where would be the fun in learning French?

En conclusion !

There you go! Here are the main rules for French adjectives. Remember that in a lot of cases, you can just add an -e at the end of a masculine adjective to make it feminine, and an -s to make it plural. For the special cases, why not print out a table of examples and display it where you can see it? (Did someone say the bathroom? 🤫)Though it can look like there is a lot, you will soon see the pattern in the words and will be able to gracefully go from premier to première and from amoureux to amoureuse!

Révisez bien !

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Louise

Louise is a French teacher and courses director. She lives in Oxford, UK and loves to bike around this lovely city. She is a keen traveller (she lived in Europe, the United States and Australia) and loves meeting people from all over the world. She is also passionate about how learning a new language opens doors to so many different cultures, and this is what she wants to share with her students. She comes from Burgundy-Franche-Comté, a region in the East of France, and loves everything there is about it, from the Macvin to the cancoillotte! If you want to know more, check out her LinkedIn profile.

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