icon-background-square
New
New
Year 3

What is it? Naming belongings with 'un' and 'une'

Learning outcomes

I can use 'un' and 'une' to name belongings in French.

I can recognise and pronounce [un].

icon-background-square
New
New
Year 3

What is it? Naming belongings with 'un' and 'une'

Learning outcomes

I can use 'un' and 'une' to name belongings in French.

I can recognise and pronounce [un].

warning

These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.

Switch to our new teaching resources now - designed by teachers and leading subject experts, and tested in classrooms.

Lesson details

Vocabulary and transcripts for this lessons

Key learning points

  1. The sound-symbol correspondence [un] is a nasal vowel sound; ‘un’ means 'a/an' and number one in French.
  2. All nouns have grammatical gender, masculine or feminine.
  3. The masculine word for 'a/an' is 'un', the feminine word is 'une'; these determiners are called indefinite articles.

Keywords

  • [un] - sound-symbol correspondence

  • Indefinite articles - the two words 'un' and 'une' meaning 'a/an'

  • Grammatical gender - a way to categorise nouns as masculine or feminine

Common misconception

Grammatical gender is the same as biological gender. If a word is feminine we think of it as female, if it is masculine we think of it as male.

Grammatical gender is not the same as biological gender. All French nouns are either masculine or feminine, whether they name people, places or things.

It is a good idea to emphasise the difference in pronunciation between 'un' and 'une' by (over)exaggerating facial movements, as these two indefinite articles come up constantly.
speech-bubble
Teacher tip
equipment-required

Equipment

copyright

Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2025), licensed on
Open Government Licence version 3.0
except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Lesson video

Loading...

Some of our videos, including non-English language videos, do not have captions.

6 Questions

Q1.
Which of these words are nouns?
Correct answer: universe
blue
big
Correct answer: jungle
Correct answer: banana
Q2.
True or false? The sounds [an] and [en] in French are the same.
Correct answer: true
false
Q3.
Match each vowel sound to the correct word and practise its pronunciation.
Correct Answer:[a],banane
tick

banane

Correct Answer:[e],je
tick

je

Correct Answer:[i],midi
tick

midi

Correct Answer:[o],moto
tick

moto

Correct Answer:[u],univers
tick

univers

Q4.
Match each of these pronouns to the correct version of the verb 'être': 'to be, being'.
Correct Answer:je,suis
tick

suis

Correct Answer:tu,es
tick

es

Correct Answer:il, elle,est
tick

est

Q5.
Which of the following nouns have a silent-final consonant?
Correct answer: salut
Correct answer: présent
présente
triste
Correct answer: grand
Q6.
In French, adjectives have to with the gender of the person they are describing. For example, 'Il est grand, elle est grande'.
Correct Answer: agree, AGREE

6 Questions

Q1.
How many ways are there to say 'a/an' in French?
one
Correct answer: two
three
Q2.
What does 'un' mean in English?
Correct answer: the number 'one/1'
the
Correct answer: a/an
Q3.
All French nouns are either masculine or .
Correct Answer: feminine, FEMININE
Q4.
True or false? 'Un' and 'une' make the same sounds in French.
true
Correct answer: false
Q5.
Match each of these English words to the correct French translations.
Correct Answer:a bag,un sac
tick

un sac

Correct Answer:a bottle,une bouteille
tick

une bouteille

Correct Answer:a pen,un stylo
tick

un stylo

Correct Answer:a cuddly toy,une peluche
tick

une peluche

Correct Answer:an orange,une orange
tick

une orange

Correct Answer:a game,un jeu
tick

un jeu

Q6.
'Stylo', 'cahier', 'jeu', 'sac' and 'ballon' are examples of nouns.
Correct Answer: masculine, MASCULINE

Additional material

Download additional material