scottmillerukctrg 12 Posted March 26, 2014 Bonjour, je m'appele Lucas. I was having my first online French class few minutes ago and I was taking like a test. So there was this question: which to use before "garçon" a) l' b) le c) la I know la is for female gender and that le is for male but I was thinking about trying using l' because I just wanted to make sure that it was a contraction of le (just like in English "we'll" is a contraction of "we will"). It happens it didn't work so well and I got a wrong. So my question is what's the difference between le and l'???? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NeMeSiS 11 Posted March 27, 2014 AFAIK you only use l' when the first letter of the next word is pronounced with a vowel. So a, e, etc, but often also H in french (considering you do not pronounce the H in words like 'hotel' in French). The G in Garcons doenst start with a vowel like sound, so it wouldnt have l'. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mr burns 132 Posted March 27, 2014 AFAIK you only use l' when the first letter of the next word is pronounced with a vowel. So a, e, etc, but often also H in french (considering you do not pronounce the H in words like 'hotel' in French). The G in Garcons doenst start with a vowel like sound, so it wouldnt have l'. Sounds legit. L´etrangere comes straight across the tongue whereas l´garcon doesn´t go at all :D I remember from schooldays that their male & female cases are all over the place, coming from a german background that is. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heinrich Kramer 172 Posted March 27, 2014 it's le garcon, since garcon is male and as NeMeSiS stated, it doesn't have a vowel or an H as first letter I remember from schooldays that their male & female cases are all over the place, coming from a german background that is. they are mostly (but not all) the same, but french has one case less than german. best example would be the car La voiture in french, in that case female. Das Auto in German, wich makes it neuter, a case french doesn't have, wich is the main reason why most french people have difficulties with german cases, even though they don't have problems with the vocabulary. My cousin called it "Die Auto" for 5 years, in example. then some words are inverted le soleil = Die Sonne (the sun). Male in french, female in german La Lune = Der Mond (the moon). Female in french, male in german. Etc. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
