Definite articles and elision (le, la, l')

Nouns come with their article

Every French noun is masculine or feminine, and the word for "the" shows which:

• le — masculine: le garçon
• la — feminine: la fille

Nothing in the meaning tells you which, so a noun is always learned with its article.

Before a vowel: l'

le and la both shrink to l' and attach to the noun: l'homme, not le homme. The h is silent, so it counts as a vowel. Because l' hides the gender, the English hint gives it instead — "the man (m)".

"To be": être

The t of est is silent.

ici and là

il, elle, on

on literally means "one", but in everyday spoken French it is the ordinary way to say "we".