Gretchen Angelo - Light and Matter

from confusing people by using the wrong pronoun to refer to anobject, for example. Secondly, since the final -s is silent in French,you usually cannot tell from hearing a noun whether it is singularor plural. However, the pronunciation of the article is different andwill tell you whether the word is singular or plural. For example,la chaise [la SEz] is singular; les chaises [le SEz] is plural. You cansee that chaise and chaises are pronounced the same [SEz], but thearticle is pronounced differently ([la] vs. [le]).As you practice the vocabulary words for this chapter, always sayor write the appropriate article with a noun. If the word beginswith a vowel or silent h, the article will not divulge the gender ofthe noun. In those cases, for example, l’homme (m.), a small “m.”or “f.” after the word in the vocabulary list tells you whether theword is masculine or feminine.You will learn about another type of articles, indefinite articles, inchapter 2. For now, you should use the definite articles to help youlearn the gender of the nouns in this chapter.B.5.1 Self-check: Gender and definite articlesAnswer the following questions “True” or “False” based on yourreading of the previous section. All the information necessary toanswer the questions is contained in section B.5. If you miss anyquestion, please go back and reread the section to find the correctanswer. If the answer is false, indicate why it is false.1. Only people have gender in French.2. The definite article in English is “the.”3. The definite article in French has three forms.4. It is easy to hear the difference between singular and pluralnouns in French because you can hear the final -s on a pluralnoun.5. The masculine plural definite article is “les.”6. Before a vowel or an h, the plural definite article becomes“l’ .”Answers, B.5.1: 1. F; 2. T; 3.F; 4. F; 5. T; 6. F; 7. T; 8. F;9. T; 10. T; 11. F; 12. T; 13.F; 14. T. Explanations of thefalse answers can be found inthe answer key. Do not refer tothem until you have attemptedto find the answer yourself.7. The masculine and feminine plural definite articles are identical.8. It is easy to tell a masculine from a feminine noun in Frenchsimply by looking at the spelling of the noun.9. The feminine singular definite article may be “la” or “l’ .”10. If a word begins with a vowel, you cannot tell from the definitearticle whether it is masculine or feminine.44 Chapter 1 Bonjour! Ça va?