--- title: Olympiad: gender-pattern puzzles ★★★ — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Olympiad: gender-pattern puzzles ★★★», a lesson of the french course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A French gender puzzle is a detective story: the noun hides its gender, and you must find it from clues - the ending of the word, or t --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/38-olympiad-gender-pattern-puzzles/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [French](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/) / Olympiad: gender-pattern puzzles ★★★ # Olympiad: gender-pattern puzzles ★★★ Lesson 38 of the french course of Mova's primary school: 14 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/french/38-olympiad-gender-pattern-puzzles/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/38-olympiad-gender-pattern-puzzles/0/) — A French gender puzzle is a detective story: the noun hides its gender, and you must find it from clues - the ending of the word, or the little words and endings around it. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/38-olympiad-gender-pattern-puzzles/1/) — Endings are the first clue: -ment, -age and -eau usually mean masculine, while -tion, -ette, -ure and -té usually mean feminine - but a good detective also remembers the famous rebels, like la plage and l'été. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/38-olympiad-gender-pattern-puzzles/4/) — Some words even change meaning with their gender, so the le or la is the only clue to what the sentence means. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/38-olympiad-gender-pattern-puzzles/5/) — Using endings: le bâtiment (-ment), une émotion (-tion), le fromage (-age), une chaussette (-ette), le château (-eau), une aventure (-ure). - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/38-olympiad-gender-pattern-puzzles/6/) — Most -age words are masculine, but la plage, la page, la cage and l'image are feminine exceptions. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/38-olympiad-gender-pattern-puzzles/7/) — La poste is the post office; le poste or un poste is a job: "Ma sœur a un nouveau poste" means my sister has a new job. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/38-olympiad-gender-pattern-puzzles/8/) — When l' hides the gender, an adjective can show it: l'école est grande (feminine), l'arbre est grand and l'hôtel est petit (masculine). - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/38-olympiad-gender-pattern-puzzles/9/) — Liberté, égalité, fraternité are all feminine, like most -té words; l'été (summer) and le côté (the side) are masculine exceptions. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/38-olympiad-gender-pattern-puzzles/10/) — Job words change in patterns: boulanger to boulangère, chanteur to chanteuse, acteur to actrice; so danseur gives danseuse, fermier gives fermière and directeur gives directrice. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/38-olympiad-gender-pattern-puzzles/11/) — Countries: en Italie and en Allemagne (feminine), au Brésil and au Mexique (masculine); le Mexique ends in -e but is masculine. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/38-olympiad-gender-pattern-puzzles/12/) — "Mon doudou ? - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/38-olympiad-gender-pattern-puzzles/15/) — "Je suis fatiguée mais contente !" was written by a girl or woman; a boy would write fatigué and content. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/38-olympiad-gender-pattern-puzzles/16/) — Camille and Sacha can be names for boys or girls in French: "mon ami Camille" is a boy, "mon amie Sacha est sportive" is a girl. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/38-olympiad-gender-pattern-puzzles/17/) — Un tour is a trip or a turn, but une tour is a tower, so the Eiffel Tower is la tour Eiffel. - ← previous: [Olympiad: number-word puzzles ★★★](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/37-olympiad-number-word-puzzles/) - next →: [Olympiad: decoding a short French text ★★★](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/) - ↑ back to [French](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/)