The pairing rule
le ↔ un, la ↔ une, always. Test yourself both directions: hear la porte, produce une porte; hear un chat, produce le chat. If one of the pair is in memory, the other is a lookup you can do in your head.
Un and une — a and an, in two genders
French "a/an" follows the same split as le and la: un livre for a masculine noun, une table for a feminine one. If you know a word’s le or la, its un or une comes free — this lesson drills the matching until the pairs feel like one fact.
The words
| French | English | Say it |
|---|---|---|
| unpairs with le | a / an (masculine) | uh(n) |
| unepairs with la | a / an (feminine) | ewn |
| un livre | a book | uh(n) LEEVR |
| une table | a table | ewn TAHBL |
| un chat | a cat | uh(n) SHAH |
| une porte | a door | ewn PORT |
Respellings follow the course’s say-it key; the stressed syllable is in capitals. Print this lesson’s flashcards (PDF) — the words on the front, the English and respelling on the back.
Hear the words
Each word is read twice — say it back in the gap. Computer-generated voice; credits on the course page.
Do it now — on paper
- Convert aloud: le livre → un…, la table → une…, and back again.
- Write both forms for five nouns you know so far, in two columns.
- Point at objects around the room: un stylo, une chaise — article first, always.
This free course is the reading half. The writing half — write-in lessons, daily practice pages with built-in review, self-checks and a full answer key — is the companion workbook series, The French Ladder: one workbook per module, fifteen in all, released band by band with the Basic band (Modules 1–5) first.
Keep these words
Turn this lesson’s words into flashcards, then space your reviews — the two habits the research behind our study guides backs hardest.
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