agreement in gender

KayC1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

agreement in gender

Two questions in the B1 tests and I may be dim but I am clearly missing something as I am not sure what the "superieur(e)/inferieur(e) à ) agrees with!

Notre cuisine est supérieure à celle de ce restaurant. 

and 

Son (Her) travail est inférieur à celui de son frère. "Restaurant" and "frère" are both masculine, "cuisine" and "Son (her) travail"  feminine.  I left the "e" off in the Notre cuisine sentence and put it on in the Son travail sentence. Help!

Asked 2 years ago
CélineKwiziq team memberCorrect answer

Bonjour Kay,

Maarten's answer is correct: because the subject "la cuisine" is feminine then "supérieur" takes an -e and because the subject "le travail" is masculine, "inférieur" doesn't. 

See previous answer: if-the-two-nouns-are-different-genders#Answer-16675 

Further links:

Common mistakes with mon/ma/mes, ton/ta/tes and son/sa/ses (possessive adjectives) 

mon-ma-mes-ton-ta-tes-son-sa-ses-to-say-my-your-his-her-possessive-adjectives

notre-nos-votre-vos-leur-leurs-to-say-our-your-and-their-possessive-adjectives 

We've added an example in the lesson to illustrate this specific agreement. ;-)

I hope this is helpful.

Bonne journée !

MaartenC1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor

Kay, the agreement is with the subject of the verb i.e. the noun to which the description of being 'superior or 'inferior' applies. Hence "la cuisine" and "le travail" in your 2 examples. Agree that as all of the examples compare like to like, it would be useful to include examples that compared non-identical 'nouns' and different grammatical gender to help consolidate this - as a simple example  "Ma voiture est supérieure à votre camion .... "

Chris also addressed this question of adjectival agreement on the linked site immediately below your question in an answer a year ago.

agreement in gender

Two questions in the B1 tests and I may be dim but I am clearly missing something as I am not sure what the "superieur(e)/inferieur(e) à ) agrees with!

Notre cuisine est supérieure à celle de ce restaurant. 

and 

Son (Her) travail est inférieur à celui de son frère. "Restaurant" and "frère" are both masculine, "cuisine" and "Son (her) travail"  feminine.  I left the "e" off in the Notre cuisine sentence and put it on in the Son travail sentence. Help!

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