# FR: une personne - feminine gender for both men and women



## Kortaggio

Salut tout le monde,

J'ai un petite question:
La dictionnaire a traduit «person» en Anglais à «personne» en Français, je me demandais: si leur «person» est un homme, est-il approprié de utiliser à «une personne», un nom féminin?

Merci beaucoup!


Hey everyone,

I have a small question:
The dictionary listed "person" in English as "personne" in French, I was wondering: if your "person" was a man, would it be appropriate to use "une personne", a feminine noun?

Thanks a lot!

Corigée mon Français s.v.p.


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## Tim~!

It will strike you as odd, but you'll refer to _personne _as _elle_, even if it's the machoest man in the world who it is referring to.

It's hard for us to get our heads around it, but French people don't think "we're using a female label to speak about a man."  To them it's purely that the word _personne _happens to fall under the category of a certain noun, and it's the same one as most of the words which apply to female humans too. It's not a "female" word, as we would think of it.


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## Fred_C

Tim~! said:


> It's hard for us to get our heads around it, but French people don't think "we're using a female label to speak about a man." To them it's purely that the word _personne _happens to fall under the category of a certain noun, and it's the same one as most of the words which apply to female humans too. It's not a "female" word, as we would think of it.


 
 This is absolutely correct.
The grammatical feminine gender is not really felt to represent female beings.


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## yuechu

Bonjour,

J'aimerais savoir dans la deuxième phrase qui suit si on devrait utiliser "il" ou "elle" (ou peut-être que les deux s'utilisent !).

"Le genre de personne avec qui j'aime travailler est [quelqu'un de] sympa. ___ serait aussi quelqu'un d'intelligent."

Par défaut, j'utiliserais "il" puisque le genre de la personne est inconnu (il pourrait masculin ou féminin). Mais le mot "personne" est quand même féminin. Est-ce qu'on utilise souvent le pronom sujet "elle" quand on remplace "personne" ? ou "il" ?
On a aussi le mot "genre" ici mais je pense que ça n'influerait pas sur la phrase suivante.

Merci beaucoup d'avance de votre aide/suggestions ! 

PS. In English, we often use the word "they" to replace somebody with an unknown gender. In French though, in these situations I don't know what the best word to use is.. (with the word "personne"). I suppose it might depend on the context?


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## no_cre0

Je ferais une seule phrase. "sympa et intelligent".


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## yuechu

C'est une bonne suggestion effectivement.. hehe. Je suis d'accord avec toi en fait. Mais si je veux toujours remplacer "personne" de la première phrase.. ? (let's say if the second sentence were more important and I couldn't contract it into one sentence)


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## WordRef1

Je pense que le mot serait "il" car "le genre" est le sujet, mais même si vous ne l'utilise pas comme ça ici, s'il y a un autre mot comme sujet, je dirais que c'est quelqu'un - aussi masculin.
Et également, je pense que ce sont sympathie et intelligence ici.
hopefully a native will verify


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## sofff

Bonjour,
quand vous utilisez le mot "personne", le pronom à utiliser est "elle" même s'il s'agit d'un homme.
what about:
"j'aime travailler avec des personnes du genre sympa et intelligent".
attention :"sympa" est familier. il faut utiliser "sympathique" dans un contexte professionnel.


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## lfeb

Hello,

If I want to describe "une personne," in a second sentence, I would use a feminine adjective.  EX.  C'est une personne.  Elle est belle.

Question:  what if the personne I'm referring to is a male, and I'm pointing him out?  Would my second sentence remain femine, since I'm modifying the noun personne?  Or, would it be "il est beau," because the person is a male?

Thanks for your help!


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## Lune bleue

Hello,

it should remain feminine, you're talking about "une personne" not about a man, even if the person is male. 

_"Cet homme est une belle personne_"


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## Oddmania

Hi,

If you're strictly describing the word _personne _(as in _Cet homme est une belle personne_, as Lune Bleue suggested), then yes, it should remain feminine. On the other hand, you should definitely switch to the masculine gender if you had two sentences, like _J'ai rencontré une personne dans le train. *Il *s'appelle Tom._

*EDIT: *Come to think of it, neither _Il _nor _Elle s'appelle Tom_ sounds right to me... Obviously, _Elle s'appelle Tom_ sounds stupid, because you're talking about a man and _Tom _is a boy name. Still, saying _J'ai rencontré une personne_ and then immediately going on to say_ *Il *s'appelle Tom _would sound off, because _personne _really is a feminine word. 

We would just never put it this way. Rather _J'ai rencontré *quelqu'un*, *il*..._  or _J'ai rencontré une personne. C'est *un homme*,* il*..._  instead.


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## hditvinh

If I want to describe "une personne," in a second sentence, I would use a feminine adjective. EX. C'est une personne. Elle est belle.


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## Maître Capello

Actually, there aren't many contexts where we would be likely to say _c'est une personne_, even more so when there isn't any complement after _personne_. (The only case that comes to mind is when the meaning of _personne_ is "human being", e.g., _L'embryon est-il une personne ?_) And even with a complement it would be relatively uncommon – though not impossible –, especially when referring to a male person. We would rather say _c'est quelqu'un_ instead.

Anyway, as mentioned above by Oddmania, if we know the sex of the person, we would most likely switch to the corresponding gender as soon as possible.

By the way, please don't confuse sex with gender: they are two different things. Sex can be male or female, while gender can be masculine or feminine. The first refers to the anatomy while the other refers to the grammar. Hence people, whether male of female, can be referred to using either masculine or feminine words.

_Marc est une star._
_Isabelle est un exemple pour nous tous._


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## thalaivi

Bonjour,

And what happens if we have personne and the pronoun that we use to replace it in the same sentence

This sentence appears in my French Text - Dites qui sont ces personnes et pourquoi elles écrivent à Nadia?

The people here talked about are two men and two women

So if it is the same sentence we go with the feminine pronoun no matter what?

I understand how it works for adjectives but is it the same for pronouns as well?

Merci
Vidya


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## atcheque

Bonjour,

_Dites qui sont ces personnes et pourquoi elles écrivent à Nadia*_*? _
Personnes : féminin pluriel  elles.


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