Learn French: Le grand-père est sérieux, mais la grand-mère est active. - The grandfather is serious, but the grandmother is active.

Le grand-père est sérieux, mais la grand-mère est active.

The grandfather is serious, but the grandmother is active.

Breakdown of Le grand-père est sérieux, mais la grand-mère est active.

Questions & Answers about Le grand-père est sérieux, mais la grand-mère est active.

Why do the adjectives sérieux and active have such different endings here?

Sérieux (serious) is describing le grand-père, so it uses the masculine -eux ending. Active (active) is describing la grand-mère, so it uses the feminine -ve ending. These are irregular adjective rules: masculine adjectives ending in -eux become -euse in the feminine, and those ending in -f become -ve.

How would you write this sentence if the grandfather was active and the grandmother was serious?

You would swap the adjectives and change their endings to match the new genders: Le grand-père est actif, mais la grand-mère est sérieuse. This perfectly shows how -ve turns back into -f for the masculine, and -eux changes to -euse for the feminine.

Since mère is feminine, why isn't grandmother spelled la grande-mère?

Great spot! Even though mère is feminine, the prefix grand- doesn't take an e here. This is a historical leftover from Old French, where the word grand didn't have a separate feminine form. Today, it survives in fixed compound words like la grand-mère (the grandmother) and la grand-tante (the great-aunt).