This is a quite tricky theme, but it has got a simple answer.
"Gender" of words may have 2 main roles:
1) As far as living beings are concerned:
_In some cases, they are used to differentiate males from females in certain activities, job, professions and among the animal kingdom (similar to German in that case), hence avoiding ambiguities.
eg: "un conseiller" (masculine) vs "une conseillère" (feminine): both mean "councellor", however, the gender of the subject is known. But that is not always the case, and quite a good deal of words are still limited to their masculine form, which leads a few to speak of "language sexism"
2) As far as objects, actions, ideas and concepts are concerned:
_The second and perhaps most important use of masculine/feminine words, however, is totally subconscient and most French people themselves do ignore it completely.
"Feminine" words in French are more general, vague, they express categories, species, groups of ideas, whereas "masculine" words are specific, precise and accurate, they refer to the things themselves.
You can define a masculine word with a feminineone, because that word necessarily belongs to a wider category of ideas, but you can hardly ever do the opposite, because if the language were a river, that would be like going against the main stream. It goes from broader (feminine) to thinner(masculine) like in a funnel, and defining a larger theme (feminine) with only one of its elements (masculine) would be either wrong or incomplete.
Eg: "Une boisson" is the feminine word for "a drink", but a drink may be "de l' alcohol" (alcohol), "du lait" (milk), "du vin" (wine), "du sirop" (syrup) etc... all of which are masculine words. Of course there are a few exceptions, but the idea's there.
Those, basically, are the 2 main functions of "word gender" in French.
There is no word in French for the neuter pronoun "it" because French grammar knows only masculine and feminine gender. Use the masculine or feminine pronoun, il or elle,respectively, depending upon the gender of the antecedent. Where the gender of the antecedent is not specified, use the masculine form il.Neither. Only the nouns - and their related adjectives - are masculine and feminine in French.
Lecture is a feminine noun in French. Use the feminine articles la or une.
"Est" is a form of a verb in French. Nouns and adjectives can be masculine or feminine, but verbs are neither masculine nor feminine, and you could use them whatever is the gender of the subject:elle est jolie (she is pretty) - il est grand (he is tall).
The French word portable is masculine and may be used as follows: J'utilise un portable ("I use a notebook").
English does not use genders for specific words.
Le is for masculine words, la is for feminine words.
brain is masculine
There is no word in French for the neuter pronoun "it" because French grammar knows only masculine and feminine gender. Use the masculine or feminine pronoun, il or elle,respectively, depending upon the gender of the antecedent. Where the gender of the antecedent is not specified, use the masculine form il.Neither. Only the nouns - and their related adjectives - are masculine and feminine in French.
Lecture is a feminine noun in French. Use the feminine articles la or une.
The gender is feminine when "shoes" is translated from English to French since the equivalent is chaussures. Some French speakers still use the word souliers, which is masculine. The respective pronunciations will be "sho-syoor" in the feminine and "soo-lyey" in the masculine in French.
you cannot "speak male or female" in French. You are only using words that can be masculine or feminine, but you use the same words regardless of your own gender.
"Est" is a form of a verb in French. Nouns and adjectives can be masculine or feminine, but verbs are neither masculine nor feminine, and you could use them whatever is the gender of the subject:elle est jolie (she is pretty) - il est grand (he is tall).
The French word portable is masculine and may be used as follows: J'utilise un portable ("I use a notebook").
The English language does not use gender words; all nouns are neuter and take neuter verbs. English uses different words for a male or a female person or animal, such as mother and father. The noun 'Spain' and the adjective 'Spanish' are neutral words in English.
The word "enfant" is both a masculine and a feminine in French, so you can write "un enfant" for a boy (or even a girl) or "une enfant" (for a girl only). The plural "les enfants" could be both feminine and masculine, but it is very likely that the vast majority of French speakers understand it as masculine, the masculine being also the mode you use in French when being "unspecific" about the gender.
Sport is a masculine, not a feminine, word in French. The masculine singular noun, which means "exercise," "sport" or "sports" in English, may be preceded immediately by the masculine singular le since French employs definite articles where English does and does not use "the." The pronunciation will be "(luh) spor" in Alsatian French.
English does not use genders for specific words.