Can't find an answer to this: Why is it L’hôtel instead of le or la hotel? Hotel does not begin with a vowel, or is this an exception? The rule is below: L' "The" + any noun beginning with a vowel Love the course so far! Thanks

Hello Flux, The "h" at the beginning of a word is silent, that is why the word "hotel" is treated as if beginning with a vowel. Hope that helps. Bill.

Thanks for the reply. I understand the "h" is silent in pronunciation. But the "h" needs to be included when writing the word. Hence, L’hôtel not L’ôtel. I agree that "h" has something to do with the definite article "l". But I have not seen a rule for it. The only rule know of about the contraction of le or la is the following: "L' "The" + any noun beginning with a vowel" Nothing about the consonant h. Maybe that information is later in the course?

Salut à tous! The rule is : l' is used when it's followed by a singular noun starting with a vowel or h muet. I hope this helps :)

Was haben Sie gesagen? Ist das Französisch?

Marie-Claire, I know what you said until I come upon the hammock. It is le hamac and not l'hamac. Is it one of the exceptions to the rule that we have to memorize?

I am shocked to see "French Leader" after my name! I am a beginner and am struggling with everything French, the language.

Bonjour M L, Oui, because the word hamac has been borrowed from English it has become, as you described, one of the exceptions to the rule. Unfortunately, French has many of these and we just have to commit them to memory. I hope this helps. - Marie-Claire

All those contracted words with the L in front, such as l'hotel, must still be treated as femenine or masculine in French usage. For those of us who are fairly new with French, I have a suggestion. I bought Barron's French-English dictionary. It came with a password so that I could download it onto the computer. Now whenever I come upon a contracted noun and don't know the gender (e.g. l'hotel), I can quickly look it up. This also works very nicely for any word for which I don't know the meaning and is much faster than using the book when I'm already using the computer for my French studies. Amazon currently lists Barron's French-English dictionary in the vinyl and hard bound, as well as pocket and Kindle editions. The vinyl and hard bound copies each have a red band at the bottom that says, "Bonus Feature: Free electronic dictionary available for download." Inside the dictionary is a card with information on how to download the dictionary (I think only one time). Once it's downloaded, be sure to make a back-up copy for future use. I have it on my desktop and laptop computers.

Diana S1, Thanks for the info. Is the Barron's French-English dictionary a CD or DVD? I checked Amazon but they have only paperbacks and Kindle, some with authors, others author(s) unknown. I would appreciate if you give me more details. Thanks!

Hello, It's a real difficult point of grammar...really! All the word which begins with a vowel got a " l' " as article,always... But when a word start with h ,it depends of the type of h you meet. There is 2 types of h: -the silent(or mute) one -the aspirated one When you meet one considered as silent,you've got " l' " as article(whatever the gender is),since he is considered as absent(but then, how lovely the word is to be seen with it!): ex:l'hotel l'histoire (the story) l'harmonie (the harmonie) l'hélice (the propeller) l'huile (the oil) When you meet one considered as aspirated,then you've got "le" or "la"(depending on the gender),since he is considered as active: ex:le hors-la-loi (the outlaw) la hiérarchie (the hierarchy) la hache (the axe) le hérisson (the hedgehog) la hutte (the hut) You will think:"and the exemples with "y"?" No worry,all the words beginning by "hy..." have got l' as article,since it makes an "ee" sound (as in "meet","seen"...),which is nearly always the case;and "le" or "la" (depending the gender) when it makes the sound of the "y" in word such as "yard","yellow"...The 2 only exemples that come to my mind are: -la hyène (the hyena) -la hyacinthe (the hyacinth) Other words that belong to this category are kind of barbarous,and you will never use them. Since,it's very difficult to recognize if a "h" that start a word is mute or aspirated for a foreigner learning french,then you've got to learn them as you meet them on your way,I think. best regards. Julien.