French Article

Written by Qualified French Expert Aurélie Drouard HKH, Licence d'anglais LLCE

Last updated: 2019-09-13

See also: Article Types

Articles are little words that are commonly used with nouns. French articles change (inflect) to agree with the gender and number of the words they apply to.

There are three types of French articles:

1. Definite articles : Articles définis (the : le, la, les, l')
     
2. Indefinite articles : Articles indéfinis (a, an, some : un, une, des)
     
3. Partitive articles : Articles partitifs (some : du, de la, de l', des)

There is a fourth classification called the "Zero article" which indicates that no article is associated with a noun. This is much more common in English than in French.