Is travail masculine or feminine in French?
Travail is masculine: le travail, un travail, un bon travail. What surprises learners is not the gender but the plural: it is the irregular les travaux, not travails. Adjectives agree in the masculine — un travail difficile, des travaux importants.
Why is the plural of travail travaux?
A small group of masculine nouns ending in -ail form their plural in -aux instead of the regular -s: travail → travaux, vitrail → vitraux, corail → coraux. This is a spelling pattern carried over from older French. In everyday usage travaux also has its own meaning — roadworks or building work (les travaux sur l’autoroute) — so context tells you whether it means “jobs” or “works in progress.” For exam writing, remember both the masculine gender and this irregular plural: writing des travails is an immediate error an examiner will notice.
How do you use travail in a sentence?
See the singular and the irregular plural side by side:
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- Mon travail commence à neuf heures. (My work starts at nine.)
- C’est un travail bien fait. (It’s a job well done.)
- Les travaux de rénovation dureront un mois. (The renovation works will last a month.)
The mistake learners make with travail
Two errors are common: giving it feminine agreement (une travail) and regularising the plural (des travails). Both are wrong. It is le travail in the singular and les travaux in the plural. Fixing the plural is often the quicker win — the gender is masculine, and the plural is -aux.
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 travail is never a guess again.
