French Genders, Rules and Exceptions

Excerpt from French Genders, Rules and Exceptions

One of the principal difficulties in learning certain foreign languages is that caused by the "artificial" or "arbitrary" genders - that is, that which is assigned the nouns, sometimes for evident cause, sometimes without apparent reason, and again with no real reason, and indeed, absurdly. The child who acquires his mother tongue gradually, by imitation and absorption, as it were, has but little difficulty in remembering the gender of a given noun; to the adult, however, these artificial genders are a stumbling-block. In German, which has three genders, the matter at first seems much more difficult than in French; but when we come to consider that in French every object of neuter, or name of a living being of so-called "common" gender, must be used with either a masculine or a feminine article, the task of determining is really more difficult. Magyar or Hungarian - in other respects a most difficult language - is in this particular a fortunate exception, as there is but one gender - or none at all.

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