Is chose masculine or feminine in French?
Chose is feminine: la chose, une chose, plural les choses. Adjectives agree in the feminine: une chose importante, la même chose. There is one important twist, though: when chose is part of quelque chose (something), the agreement becomes masculine.
Why is quelque chose masculine?
On its own, chose is feminine, so you say une bonne chose. But the fixed expression quelque chose behaves as a neutral pronoun meaning “something,” and French treats that as masculine by default. So you write quelque chose de bon, quelque chose d’intéressant — masculine adjective, introduced by de — not quelque chose de bonne. The same masculine-neutral logic applies to autre chose (autre chose de important becomes autre chose d’important). This split — feminine as a noun, masculine inside quelque chose — is a favourite exam trap and a reliable marker of careful French when you get it right.
How do you use chose in a sentence?
The first two are feminine; the third shows the masculine quelque chose:
Preply
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- C’est une chose difficile à expliquer. (It’s a difficult thing to explain.)
- Nous voulons la même chose. (We want the same thing.)
- J’ai appris quelque chose d’important. (I learned something important.)
The mistake learners make with chose
The classic error is feminine agreement after quelque chose: quelque chose de bonne. It should be quelque chose de bon. Keep the two patterns separate — une chose is feminine, but quelque chose de… and autre chose de… always take a masculine adjective.
When you are unsure of any noun’s gender while writing — in a TCF message, a DELF letter, or everyday French — verify it before you commit it to the page. The French Gender Checker returns the correct article, the plural, and the rule behind the gender for any noun in a single lookup, so a word like chose is never a guess again.
