# FR: gender of animal names & pronouns



## Nikkib7

Pourquoi y a-t-il des animaux dans la partie francaise du dictionnaire qui ont juste un genre?  Par exemple: racoon est juste un raton-laveur?  Mais, un chien et une chienne?


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## RuK

[...]

Your question about the genders of animals is one I've wondered myself. (I constantly make gender mistakes, I think it's the Anglophone's most enduring problem in French). Common animals have separate male and female names. Animals not often encountered, or which don't often need to be distinguished (who gets close enough to a porcupine to tell its gender?) get assigned a gender, like any other object in French, and then if you have to stipulate the gender you can say "un raton-laveur femelle". (I usually end up saying "une raton-laveur" and getting corrected).


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## Fred_C

Hi,
Please do not make a confusion between grammatical gender and biological gender.
Every language sometimes has different words to make a distinction for the gender of animals : Even in English, you say "ox" and "cow", "dog" and "bitch", "rooster" and "hen", "horse" and "mare" but in the majority of the cases, there is only one word to mean both sexes : mice, flies, racoons, crocodiles.......

Languages that have grammatical gender work in the same way, except that each noun has a grammatical gender, and there is no connexion between the grammatical gender and the biological gender, except in the case where there are clearly two words, one meaning a male animal, and one meaning a female animal. In this case, most often, the word designing the male will be masculine, and the other one will be feminine.

And please keep in mind that it is wrong to say that objects have a gender assigned, only nouns have, that is : names for the objects, not the objects themselves.

"*Un* soulier, c'est *une* chaussure, ce sont des synonymes".


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## marge simpson

Being English I sometimes struggle with genders, and the corresponding pronoun. If a word is feminine, eg   souris, but your mouse is a boy one, do you refer to it as il or elle?  It looks strange writing j'ai une souris. Elle s'appelle Bob.


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## ClaireOdeOLune

That's correct! 
You also can specify that it's a male :
"J'ai une souris, c'est un mâle, il s'appelle Bob."
Or you can find a way to get around the problem :
"J'ai une souris mâle qui s'appelle Bob."


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## Fred_C

ClaireOdeOLune said:


> That's correct!
> You also can specify that it's a male :
> "J'ai une souris, c'est un mâle, il s'appelle Bob."



Yes, but this sentence is correct not because you have specified that the mouse is a male, it works because the pronoun "il" refers to the noun "male" and the noun "male" is a masculine noun.

This is true because if you introduce your sentence like this :
"J'ai une souris male",
you MUST continue with : "ELLE s'appelle Bob". (Elle refers to "souris")

Pronouns can have two very different uses :
1) they can refer to a living being, (and then you choose "il" or "elle" according to the sex of this being)
2) They can refer to a previously mentioned noun. And in this case, the choice between "il" or "elle"must be made according to the noun gender.

When both uses are possible, the second one always prevails.


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## Entrains

Marge Simpson, your question is most interesting. Let me reverse it and ask you why is it that a mouse is always subconsciously perceived as a HE in English? Is it because of Mickey mouse being a male? Likewise a grasshopper is a "HE" when a praying mantis is a "SHE" although the gender is not known. Of course, you can use "IT" which will solve the issue but I am referring to the anglophone's knee jerk perception here.
I would be grateful if you could elaborate on that for my benefit.


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## marge simpson

I don't automatically think of a mouse as 'he' - I consider it an it, unless I know it is a male or female mouse, in which case I might refer to it as he or she, rather than it.
What I find strange is that I know my hamster is female (called Alice by the way), but in French and German I would have to refer to it as a masculine thing .


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## Lacuzon

Hi,

Only few animals have masculine and feminine nouns. Take a look at : http://sauvegarde-animaux-planete.e-monsite.com/rubrique,les-noms-d-animaux,268750.html


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## Charlie51

To describe a female dog, as in, " I have a black dog. She is called Goldie", is it OK to say 
"J'ai un chien noir. Elle s'appelle Goldie" even though "chien" is masculine?

I'm never sure what to do when talking about a pet which is a different gender than the French word.

Merci à l'avance!


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## Juan Jacob Vilalta

J'ai un*e* chien*ne*... elle s'appelle...

Got it?


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## Charlie51

What do you do if it's an animal whigh doesn't have another version?
e.g. J'ai une souris. Il s'appelle Fred?


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## Charlie51

Please could someone tell me which is correct:-

J'ai une souris mâle. *Il* s'appelle Jean. 
or
J'ai une souris mâle. *Elle* s'appelle Jean. 

Merci à l'avance!


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## Maître Capello

Both are acceptable, but from a strict grammatical point of view, you should go with _elle_ because _souris_ is feminine, _mâle_ being only an adjective in this example.

_J'ai une souris mâle. *Elle* s'appelle Jean._​On the other hand, you should write:

_J'ai une souris. C'est un mâle. *Il* s'appelle Jean._​Anyway, you can always find a workaround, e.g.:

_J'ai une souris mâle *qui* s'appelle Jean. _​


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## lluvioso1

Charlie51 said:


> To describe a female dog, as in, " I have a black dog. She is called Goldie", is it OK to say
> "J'ai un chien noir. Elle s'appelle Goldie" even though "chien" is masculine?





Juan Jacob Vilalta said:


> J'ai un*e* chien*ne*... elle s'appelle...



Okay. I understand from these messages if a simple animal name has another gender version(masculine or feminine), we should use that version (if we know specifically the gender of the animal that is mentioned) to name the animal. For example: J'ai vu un lion. (for a male lion), J'ai vu une lionne. (for a female lion)

But, what if we have a compound animal name? Is it possible to apply the same rule even if we just know its masculine version? For example, the name for "sea lion" in French "le lion de mer" and the name for a female sea lion is not specified, but I know the feminine version of "lion", which is "lionne". So, if I want to name a female sea lion in French, which way I should go? Should I stick with the masculine name or should I change it and use "lionne" ? I mean:

J'ai vu un lion femelle de mer.

J'ai vu une lionne de mer.

Which one is correct?


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## Maître Capello

The former should be reworded as, _J'ai vu un lion de mer femelle_. But the feminine _lionne de mer_ does also exist, e.g., see TLFi s.v. _lion_ (§ 2, C):


> _P. anal.,_ _ZOOL._ _Lionne de mer._ Femelle du lion de mer. _Pourquoi ne voit-on plus, dans ses vagues stériles, La lionne de mer bondir autour des îles? (...) La lionne de mer cachée en ses roseaux Vers Fusine allaitait ses petits lionceaux _(Quinet, _Napoléon,_ 1836, p. 185).


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## atcheque

Bonjour

Nice question.
Lionne de mer ne me choquerait pas mais me ferait sourir.
On ne peut pas séparer la locution lion de mer.


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