Nationalities in French – Masculine and Feminine Forms
The names of nationalities in French are linked to the person's gender. So, you have to know both the masculine and the feminine forms. The rules for deriving the feminine form from the masculine form are straightforward.
For the following suffixes, « -e » is appended to the feminine nationality form:
| Suffix | Masculine | Feminine |
|---|---|---|
| -ain | le Roumain | la Roumaine |
| -ais | le Polonais | la Polonaise |
| -an | un Afghan | une Afghane |
| -and | un Allemand | une Allemande |
| -in | un Argentin | une Argentine |
| -l | un Espagnol | une Espagnole |
| -ois | le Danois | la Danoise |
| -on | le Letton | la Lettone |
For the following suffixes, the feminine nationality form is derived as follows:
| Suffix | Feminine Suffix | Masculine | Feminine |
|---|---|---|---|
| « -e » | « -e » masculine and feminine forms are the same (epicene words) |
le Suisse le Slovaque le Russe |
la Suisse la Slovaque la Russe |
| « -en » | « -enne » | un Autrichien | une Autrichienne |
| « -c » | « -cque » | le Grec | la Grecque |
Language Names
The language names have the same spelling as nationality names in masculine form. You can tell the difference based on the capitalization of the first character :
- Upper case – inhabitant of a country : Le Français, l'Italien...
- Lower case – language name : Le français, l'italien...