Le or La?

Why gender is harder for Punjabi speakers than it looks

Punjabi has grammatical gender too, so the concept itself is familiar — ਕੁਰਸੀ is feminine, ਮੇਜ਼ is masculine. That familiarity is exactly the trap. The instinct is to carry the gender across from Punjabi, and it does not transfer: the two languages assign gender independently, so a noun that is feminine in Punjabi is as likely as not to be masculine in French. le lit (bed) is masculine in French while ਮੰਜਾ is masculine in Punjabi — a coincidence, not a rule you can lean on. Guessing from your first language produces roughly a coin flip, which is why gender has to be learned per noun rather than reasoned out.

Getting it wrong is not a small blemish either, because gender propagates. It changes the article (le/la, un/une), the adjective agreement (un petit sac but une petite valise), the pronoun that replaces the noun (il/elle), and past participle agreement in the passé composé. One wrong gender therefore shows up as three or four visible errors in a single written sentence, which is why expression écrite graders notice it so quickly. Fixing gender is one of the highest-leverage things you can do for a writing score.

Endings that predict gender

There is no rule that covers every noun, but endings get you a long way — worth memorising because they generalise to words you have never seen. Learn the exceptions with the rule; an ending you half-trust is worse than one you know the limits of.

Two habits are worth more than any list. First, learn the article as part of the word — store la table, never table on its own, because a bare noun gives you nothing to recall later. Second, when you meet a new noun in a lesson, say it aloud with its article; the pairing is what sticks, and it is what the Gurmukhi column below is transcribing.

The full word list

All 151 nouns, drawn from the vocabulary lessons on this site. Cover the first column and work down it if you would rather practise on paper.

84 masculine and 60 feminine nouns are used in the drill. Seven more appear in the table but are left out of the questions: collègue, locataire and propriétaire take either gender depending on who is being described, Québec is a place name, and the three next week-style expressions are phrases rather than nouns whose gender you memorise. The Gurmukhi respellings are approximations — they get you close, and your ear does the rest. Word list last updated 2026-07-26.

Keep going

• Noun gender and pluralsA1
• Articles: le, la, les, un, une, desA1
• Adjectives and agreementA2
• All vocabulary lessonsTopic
• Convert your TEF/TCF scores to CLBTool