MASCULINE AND FEMININE

In French, all nouns (names of things) are either masculine or feminine.

So when you learn a noun (the name of something), you need to know whether it's a "he" or a "she".

Why? Firstly, because the word "THE" changes, according to whether the noun it refers to is masculine or feminine.

"le" is "the (masculine)" and "la" is "the (feminine)".
so we have "le garçon" (the boy) and "la fille" (the girl).
BUT we also have "le livre" (the book) and "la table" (the table).

This takes a bit of getting used to! especially for people who speak English as their first language. But if you can grasp that French-speaking people see *everything* as male or female, you will have mastered the biggest "difference" between the French and English languages.