I guess my question more broadly might be about any of the relevant nouns in the French language but, since I was learning some of the countries – and new ones pop up every so often – I wondered on what basis is a country determined to be masculine/feminine. Is there some official group who determines this?
It seems that the more a country is near France and the more its name is feminine.(In Europe).
Feminine:
L’Angleterre, l’Italie,l’Espagne, la Suisse, la Belgique, la Pologne,la Russie MAIS: les Pays-Bas,le Luxembourg,le Danemark.
On other continents, countries are rather masculine (particularly those that were unknown in the Middle-Ages) except for instance China (la Chine) or India (feminine in French)
So no rules you must use a dictionnary as often as needed.
In French, there’s even a country that’s both masculine or feminine: Nigeria , in French you can say "le Nigéria" or "la Nigéria" but "la Nigéria" is more and more out of use.
#1 by DJ Koko on August 25th, 2009
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Nope it just sort of…is that way. And it’s really random what has what "gender".
But when in doubt, just assume it’s masculine. That goes for pretty much every language.
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#2 by hatingmsn on August 25th, 2009
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idk why but if I had to guess it would be because some things are phalic symbols. Often times people associate things like cars and guns with male and homes and flowers with female. La meaning female things and Le meaning Male. I have always thought that was odd myself.
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#3 by canadian.girl. on August 25th, 2009
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its just random. but in french, nouns that should be feminine like girl, mother etc are feminine and words like man and son are masculine.
in german however that is not the case!
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#4 by stephane m on August 25th, 2009
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Most of european ones are feminine
exception : le Portugal
le Montenegro
World names : le Japon
all names ending with -stan masculine
-LE Turkmenistan
le Lesotho
le Ghana
le Dahomey
le Sénégal seems that african ones are very often masculine
le Bénin
le Kenya
Amériques :
le Brésil
le Vénézuela
LA Bolivie
le Nicaragua
le Panama
"LE" Equateur
Le Costa-Rica
LA Argentine
Le Chili
Le Pérou
LA Colombie
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#5 by NARCISSE42 on August 25th, 2009
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It seems that the more a country is near France and the more its name is feminine.(In Europe).
Feminine:
L’Angleterre, l’Italie,l’Espagne, la Suisse, la Belgique, la Pologne,la Russie MAIS: les Pays-Bas,le Luxembourg,le Danemark.
On other continents, countries are rather masculine (particularly those that were unknown in the Middle-Ages) except for instance China (la Chine) or India (feminine in French)
So no rules you must use a dictionnary as often as needed.
In French, there’s even a country that’s both masculine or feminine: Nigeria , in French you can say "le Nigéria" or "la Nigéria" but "la Nigéria" is more and more out of use.
References :