laddo_

[gusty veldt]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

Pro tip: you can rename the thread title with `.tr <thread name>`

Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

[hybrid fjord]

well, the word "prisonier" changes gender depending on who it's referring to; however, the word "personne" is always feminine because that's it's gender

for example...

• Michael est la seule personne qui m'aide.
  you can see that we used the feminine definite article « la » and the feminine form of the adjective « seule » even though « la personne » refers to Michael

[quiet cypress]

Ahh, sorry, I see my problem now I think, I was thinking of prisonnier as a noun rather than an adjective

[hybrid fjord]

it's still a noun in this case; it just changes gender depending on if you're referring to a man or a woman

[quiet cypress]

Hmm, okay

Is there any way to know which nouns do and don't change gender?

[hybrid fjord]

well... nouns that refer to a profession have two genders: one for men and one for women (e.g. un chanteur, une chanteuse)
and animal names as well (e.g. un loup, une louve), though some these can be entirely different from each other (e.g. un coq, une poule)
and there are a handful of French nouns that can change meaning depending on their gender, like « le mode » means "the way, method, mood", while « la mode » means "the fashion". You can learn more about these here

[bronze lodge]

nouns that describe a kind of person usually have two forms, profession, nationality, etc.

[dark rain]

But not always

Ultimately a lot of it is just learning the "exceptions"

It's more common for descriptive nouns to adjust their gender, but this isn't always the case

No real rule to it really, just nouns that have a specific gender