Regular adjective agreement

An adjective is a word that describes a noun. In English, an adjective stays the same in a small coffee and a small house. In French, adjectives change to match the noun they describe.

For forms that do not follow the regular pattern, see Irregular adjective forms. To understand where an adjective appears in relation to the noun, see Adjective position.

Gender and number agreement

French adjectives agree with the nouns they describe in grammatical gender and number.

An adjective can therefore have a masculine or feminine form and a singular or plural form:

The exact form depends on the adjective. Some adjectives change visibly, while others look the same in some masculine, feminine, singular, or plural forms.

Masculine and feminine adjective forms

For many adjectives, the feminine form follows this pattern:

masculine form + -e

The masculine singular is the base form, and the feminine adds -e:

You can see the difference when these forms describe masculine and feminine nouns:

In each pair, the adjective changes form to match the noun it describes.

Adjectives with no visible agreement change

Some adjectives have the same written form in the masculine and feminine. When the masculine singular already ends in an unaccented -e, the feminine is often identical:

The same form appears with masculine and feminine nouns:

The adjective still agrees with the noun even though its written form does not change.

Other feminine adjective forms

Some adjectives form the feminine by changing the end of the masculine form.

For some adjectives, the final consonant doubles before -e:

Other adjectives change the ending:

These patterns produce forms such as:

The feminine form then agrees with the noun it describes:

These patterns apply to many adjectives, but some feminine forms must be learned individually.

Singular and plural adjective forms

French adjectives also agree with nouns in number. For many adjectives, the plural follows a simple pattern:

singular form + -s

The same pattern applies to masculine and feminine forms:

In each pair, the plural adds -s to the singular form.

Some masculine adjectives have a different plural ending. Many adjectives ending in -al change to -aux:

The change appears when the adjective describes a plural noun:

An adjective agrees with the noun in both gender and number, so both can affect its form.

Color adjectives in the plural

Many color adjectives agree with the noun in number and add -s in the plural. See Colors in French for more information.

The plural ending appears when the color adjective describes a plural noun:

Some color adjectives stay unchanged in the plural. Many color adjectives taken from the name of an object stay unchanged. Compound colors also do not change:

The same form appears with plural nouns:

Whether a color adjective changes in the plural depends on the type of color expression.

Agreement with multiple nouns

When an adjective describes more than one person or thing, it takes a plural form:

The adjective is masculine plural for a masculine group and feminine plural for a feminine group.

When a group includes both masculine and feminine nouns, the adjective traditionally takes the masculine plural form:

The adjective therefore agrees with the group as a whole, not with each noun separately.

Agreement with the noun, not the speaker

Choose the adjective form according to the person or noun it describes.

With je and tu, the pronoun itself does not show which adjective form to use:

The adjective form depends on the person that je or tu refers to.

When an adjective describes a noun, it agrees with that noun:

Voiture is grammatically feminine, so petit takes the feminine form petite.

Visible and invisible agreement

Adjective agreement can appear in writing, pronunciation, or both.

Some masculine and feminine forms differ in both spelling and pronunciation:

Other forms differ in writing but sound the same:

The adjective still agrees with the noun even when you cannot hear the difference.

From learning to practice

When you read or listen to French, notice the adjective alongside the noun it describes. Written endings often make agreement easy to spot, while some forms sound identical in speech.