FR: une personne - feminine gender for both men and women

[Kortaggio]

Salut tout le monde,

J'ai un petite question:
La dictionnaire a traduit «person» en Anglais à «personne» en Français, je me demandais: si leur «person» est un homme, est-il approprié de utiliser à «une personne», un nom féminin?

Merci beaucoup!


Hey everyone,

I have a small question:
The dictionary listed "person" in English as "personne" in French, I was wondering: if your "person" was a man, would it be appropriate to use "une personne", a feminine noun?

Thanks a lot!

Corigée mon Français s.v.p.

 

[Tim~!]

It will strike you as odd, but you'll refer to personne as elle, even if it's the machoest man in the world who it is referring to.

It's hard for us to get our heads around it, but French people don't think "we're using a female label to speak about a man." To them it's purely that the word personne happens to fall under the category of a certain noun, and it's the same one as most of the words which apply to female humans too. It's not a "female" word, as we would think of it.

 

[Fred_C]

It's hard for us to get our heads around it, but French people don't think "we're using a female label to speak about a man." To them it's purely that the word personne happens to fall under the category of a certain noun, and it's the same one as most of the words which apply to female humans too. It's not a "female" word, as we would think of it.

This is absolutely correct.
The grammatical feminine gender is not really felt to represent female beings.

 

[yuechu]

Bonjour,

J'aimerais savoir dans la deuxième phrase qui suit si on devrait utiliser "il" ou "elle" (ou peut-être que les deux s'utilisent !).

"Le genre de personne avec qui j'aime travailler est [quelqu'un de] sympa. ___ serait aussi quelqu'un d'intelligent."

Par défaut, j'utiliserais "il" puisque le genre de la personne est inconnu (il pourrait masculin ou féminin). Mais le mot "personne" est quand même féminin. Est-ce qu'on utilise souvent le pronom sujet "elle" quand on remplace "personne" ? ou "il" ?
On a aussi le mot "genre" ici mais je pense que ça n'influerait pas sur la phrase suivante.

Merci beaucoup d'avance de votre aide/suggestions !

PS. In English, we often use the word "they" to replace somebody with an unknown gender. In French though, in these situations I don't know what the best word to use is.. (with the word "personne"). I suppose it might depend on the context?

 

[no_cre0]

Je ferais une seule phrase. "sympa et intelligent".

 

[yuechu]

C'est une bonne suggestion effectivement.. hehe. Je suis d'accord avec toi en fait. Mais si je veux toujours remplacer "personne" de la première phrase.. ? (let's say if the second sentence were more important and I couldn't contract it into one sentence)

 

[WordRef1]

Je pense que le mot serait "il" car "le genre" est le sujet, mais même si vous ne l'utilise pas comme ça ici, s'il y a un autre mot comme sujet, je dirais que c'est quelqu'un - aussi masculin.
Et également, je pense que ce sont sympathie et intelligence ici.
hopefully a native will verify

 

[sofff]

Bonjour,
quand vous utilisez le mot "personne", le pronom à utiliser est "elle" même s'il s'agit d'un homme.
what about:
"j'aime travailler avec des personnes du genre sympa et intelligent".
attention :"sympa" est familier. il faut utiliser "sympathique" dans un contexte professionnel.

 

[lfeb]

Hello,

If I want to describe "une personne," in a second sentence, I would use a feminine adjective. EX. C'est une personne. Elle est belle.

Question: what if the personne I'm referring to is a male, and I'm pointing him out? Would my second sentence remain femine, since I'm modifying the noun personne? Or, would it be "il est beau," because the person is a male?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Lune bleue]

Hello,

it should remain feminine, you're talking about "une personne" not about a man, even if the person is male.

"Cet homme est une belle personne"

 

[Oddmania]

Hi,

If you're strictly describing the word personne (as in Cet homme est une belle personne, as Lune Bleue suggested), then yes, it should remain feminine. On the other hand, you should definitely switch to the masculine gender if you had two sentences, like J'ai rencontré une personne dans le train. Il s'appelle Tom.

EDIT: Come to think of it, neither Il nor Elle s'appelle Tom sounds right to me... Obviously, Elle s'appelle Tom sounds stupid, because you're talking about a man and Tom is a boy name. Still, saying J'ai rencontré une personne and then immediately going on to say Il s'appelle Tom would sound off, because personne really is a feminine word.

We would just never put it this way. Rather J'ai rencontré quelqu'un, il... or J'ai rencontré une personne. C'est un homme, il... instead.

 

[hditvinh]

If I want to describe "une personne," in a second sentence, I would use a feminine adjective. EX. C'est une personne. Elle est belle.

 

[Maître Capello]

Actually, there aren't many contexts where we would be likely to say c'est une personne, even more so when there isn't any complement after personne. (The only case that comes to mind is when the meaning of personne is "human being", e.g., L'embryon est-il une personne ?) And even with a complement it would be relatively uncommon – though not impossible –, especially when referring to a male person. We would rather say c'est quelqu'un instead.

Anyway, as mentioned above by Oddmania, if we know the sex of the person, we would most likely switch to the corresponding gender as soon as possible.

By the way, please don't confuse sex with gender: they are two different things. Sex can be male or female, while gender can be masculine or feminine. The first refers to the anatomy while the other refers to the grammar. Hence people, whether male of female, can be referred to using either masculine or feminine words.

Marc est une star.
Isabelle est un exemple pour nous tous.

 

[thalaivi]

Bonjour,

And what happens if we have personne and the pronoun that we use to replace it in the same sentence

This sentence appears in my French Text - Dites qui sont ces personnes et pourquoi elles écrivent à Nadia?

The people here talked about are two men and two women

So if it is the same sentence we go with the feminine pronoun no matter what?

I understand how it works for adjectives but is it the same for pronouns as well?

Merci
Vidya

 

[atcheque]

Bonjour,

Dites qui sont ces personnes et pourquoi elles écrivent à Nadia_?
Personnes : féminin pluriel elles.