Understanding French Adjective Basics
Before diving into our extensive list of intermediate-level French adjectives, it's crucial to remember that French adjectives must agree in gender and number with the nouns they modify. As covered in our guide about French gender of nouns, this fundamental rule shapes how we use adjectives in French.
Important
Most French adjectives add -e for feminine forms and -s for plural forms. However, there are many irregular patterns that intermediate learners must master.
Physical Description Adjectives
These adjectives help you describe people's appearance and physical characteristics with greater precision.
Personality Trait Adjectives
Moving beyond basic descriptions, these adjectives allow you to express complex personality characteristics.
Emotional State Adjectives
Similar to what we explored in our intermediate-level French conversation guide, these adjectives help express various emotional states.
Environmental and Weather-Related Adjectives
These adjectives are perfect for describing surroundings and weather conditions.
Taste and Culinary Adjectives
Building on our French cooking vocabulary guide, these adjectives describe food and flavors.
Quality and Value Adjectives
These adjectives help express opinions about the worth and quality of things.
Intellectual and Academic Adjectives
Perfect for discussing educational and intellectual topics, these adjectives enhance academic vocabulary.
Social and Relationship Adjectives
These adjectives describe social interactions and relationships between people.
Temporal and Situational Adjectives
These adjectives help describe timing and situations with more precision.
Advanced Descriptive Adjectives
These sophisticated adjectives will help you express more nuanced descriptions.
Notes
Remember that many of these adjectives can be used with the subjunctive mood, as explained in our French Subjunctive guide, especially when expressing emotions or uncertainty.
Special Agreement Rules
Some adjectives have special agreement rules that intermediate learners should master:
Examples
- Color adjectives derived from nouns (orange, marron) remain invariable - Compound adjectives usually keep only the last element variable - Adjectives like 'grand' have special forms before vowels (grand → grande)
Position of Adjectives
While most French adjectives follow the noun they modify, certain common adjectives precede the noun:
Important
The acronym BAGS (Beauty, Age, Goodness, Size) can help you remember which adjectives typically go before the noun.