Adjectives describe nouns, and in French, nouns can be either singular or plural, and masculine or feminine.

le chien – the dog (masculine singular)
la maison – the house (feminine singular)
les chiens – the dogs (masculine plural)
les maisons – the houses (feminine plural)

As I said, adjectives describe nouns. In English, it doesn’t matter what noun you describe; the adjective always stays the same. For example, look how the word “good” stays the same in all the example sentences below:

The wine is good
The food is good
The children are good
The cars are good

It doesn’t matter what the noun is; in English, the word “good” stays the same.

In French, however, if we were to say those sentences, the word for “good”, which is “bon” would change in each sentence:

Le vin est bon – the wine is good
La nourriture est bonne – the food is good
Les enfants sont bons – the children are good
Les voitures sont bonnes – the cars are good

You’ll see how the ending of the adjective “bon” changes slightly depending on the type of noun it’s describing. This is called “agreeing the adjective”.

There are rules for how to agree the adjective in French. If you were to look in a dictionary for any adjective, the version you find is the one you can use to describe masculine singular nouns, and then we change it if we want to describe feminine nouns or plural nouns. Let’s have a look at what those changes are:

MASCULINE SINGULAR NOUN
adjective doesn’t change

MASCULINE PLURAL NOUN
add an S to the end of the adjective

FEMININE SINGULAR NOUN
add an E to the end of the adjective

FEMININE PLURAL NOUN
add an ES to the end of the adjective

Let’s have a look at an example of this in use with the adjective “parfait”, which means “perfect”.

MASCULINE SINGULAR NOUN
le poulet est parfait– the chicken is perfect

MASCULINE PLURAL NOUN
les poulets sont parfaits– the chickens are perfect

FEMININE SINGULAR NOUN
la dinde est parfaite– the turkey is perfect

FEMININE PLURAL NOUN
les dindes sont parfaites– the turkeys are perfect

Now, those four rules are general rules that you can apply to most adjectives. There are adjectives that don’t follow these rules, which do their own thing. When you come across irregular adjectives, it’s a good idea to learn how they change. In the 3 Minute French courses, when we learn irregular adjectives, we always learn their unique feminine and plural versions, too.

There is a group of adjectives that has a more simplified set of rules, and that’s adjectives that end in an “e”. If an adjective already ends in an “e”, in French, you don’t need to add an extra “e” to make it feminine. For example, “fantastique” means “fantastic”. Let’s have a look at the different versions of that adjective:

MASCULINE SINGULAR NOUN
le poulet est fantastique– the chicken is fantastic

MASCULINE PLURAL NOUN
les poulets sont fantastiques– the chickens are fantastic

FEMININE SINGULAR NOUN
la dinde est fantastique– the turkey is fantastic

FEMININE PLURAL NOUN
les dindes sont fantastiques– the turkeys are fantastic

You can see how you still have to add an “s” to make it plural, but the masculine and feminine versions are the same.

Another adjective that ends in an “e” is “terrible”:

MASCULINE SINGULAR NOUN
le poulet est terrible– the chicken is terrible

MASCULINE PLURAL NOUN
les poulets sont terribles – the chickens are terrible

FEMININE SINGULAR NOUN
la dinde est terrible– the turkey is terrible

FEMININE PLURAL NOUN
les dindes sont terribles– the turkeys are terrible