What do the words le, la, and les mean in French and when should I use one or the other?

In French, nouns are given a grammatical gender.

Some words are masculine and others are feminine. The distinction is quite arbitrary. However, as a result, the articles and adjectives that we pair with French nouns must agree in both gender and number. Otherwise things sound incorrect to a native French speaker.

Understanding when to use le versus la comes down to that one concept. When you know if a word is masculine or feminine then you can always apply the correct article.

However, if you're a English speaker then you may have some trouble with this concept. Especially if you haven't taken any other foreign languages.

​Don't worry!

Today we'll cover all the basics regarding French genders. I'll show you the difference between masculine and feminine nouns. This way, you'll have all the knowledge necessary to figure out French noun genders by using a little detective work.

But first, a quick grammar lesson.

What is an Article?

An article is a part of speech that is used very often.

A definite article reveals a specific noun - in English our definite article is the.

An indefinite article doesn't refer to a specific noun. In English our indefinite articles are a or an (depending on whether the noun starts with a vowel).

Look at the difference between these two sentences:

I found a box = any random box out of an indescribable number of boxes

I found the box = a specific box that you were looking for, or referred to before.

In French, le, la, and les are all definite articles.

LE LA LES Difference

So both "le" and "la" translate to "the" in French. Look at this:

le livre = the book (m.)

la voiture = the car (f.)

The difference? In French, livre is masculine and uses the masculine definite article (le) while voiture is feminine and uses the feminine definite article (la). Notice something else? Both of those nouns are SINGULAR. There's only one book and there's only one car.

When you're first starting out with French, it helps to underline and color code French nouns. For this article, I'm making feminine nouns blue and masculine nouns red.

Every noun in French has a gender, either masculine or feminine. It's your job as a French learner to known the gender of the noun you're talking about. This way you can choose between "le" or "la" when necessary!

Unfortunately, the gender of a noun is somewhat arbitrary which forces you to memorize things. However you can look at a noun's article for clues! Let's try out an exercise.

Identify the gender of these nouns by looking at its article:

1. La démocratie est la seule chose qui aide la république.

Democracy is the only thing which helps the Republic.

2. Le verre est vide.

The glass is empty.

3. Le musée d'art moderne a une nouvelle expo.

The modern art museum has a new exposition.

Answers:

Démocratie (democracy) = feminine

Chose (thing) = feminine

République (republic) = feminine

Verre (glass) = masculine

Musée (museum) = masculine

Using L-Apostrophe

Now things are about to get a bit trickier.

If your word starts with a vowel (or the letter "h"), then we shorten the word "the" to the letter "L" with an apostrophe.

l'ordinateur = the computer (m.)

l'hôtel = the hotel (m.)

l'hiver = the winter (m.)

l'éducation = the education (f.)

This is done for pronunciation purposes. It's easier to say l'ordinateur than it is to say le ordinateur. L-apostrophe still represents the word "the" however it's been shortened!

The problem is now you cannot tell the gender of a noun simply from the article. This is because both "le" and "la" are reduced down to L-apostrophe. Note that if we put a word in between the article and the noun - we don't use L-apostrophe.

Le nouvel hôtel est maintenant fermé.

The new hotel is now closed.

Using LES

But that's not all. Les also means "the" in French but we only use it when making nouns plural.

le livre = the book (m.)

les livres = the books (m.)

la voiture = the car (f.)

les voitures = the cars (f.)

Notice the difference from before? Both masculine and feminine nouns use "les". When you tack on the "s" to the end of the noun (in this case) we get the books and the cars.

So the gender of a noun does not matter here. Both masculine and feminine nouns will use "les" if our noun is plural.

Recap & Real-world Examples

So how is this all useful? You can now pick out nouns and figure out the gender/number of said nouns by identifying le, la, and les.

Examples:

La FIFA est chargée de l'organisation des grands tournois mondiaux.

Le gouvernement renforce les mesures visant à assurer la sécurité des habitants.

Outre l'hébergement, les hôtels peuvent offrir plusieurs autres services à leur clientèle, tels que la restauration ou la garde d’enfants, ainsi que l'usage d'équipements.

Now that we know the difference between le, la, and les in French, we can continue learning more difficult French concepts!