Le genre par les suffixes I (-tion/-té/-ée)

Unité GR-07 · campagne 2 · le genre se lit à la fin du mot.

Gender is not memorized noun by noun — at B2 it is predicted from the ending, and the first family of endings is remarkably reliable.

Feminine, almost without fail:

• -tion / -sion — la nation, la décision, la solution, l'attention
• -té (abstract nouns) — la santé, la liberté, la beauté, la société
• -ée — la journée, l'année, l'idée, la pensée

The counter-currents to know:

1. Nouns in plain -é that are not abstract -té run masculine: le comité, le marché, le degré — and note le côté, l'été, masculine even with their -té spelling, because they are not abstractions.
2. A short list of -ée masculines survives from Greek: le musée, le lycée, le mausolée. These three do most of the exam damage.

The rule and its exceptions matter beyond the article: whatever gender the suffix predicts propagates down the whole agreement chain you will assemble in GR-09 — la décision importante, une valeur essentielle. Write the wrong article and every adjective downstream inherits the error.

The practice set makes you commit: high-frequency -tion/-té nouns against the musée/lycée traps, in full sentences where the article is the only clue you get to place.

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