Today’s lesson covers the adjective “white” in French: Blanc in the masculine form and blanche in the feminine form. The big mistake students make is pronouncing the C on the masculine from. You must completely ignore it and make an AN nasal sound.
blanc, blanche – [blɑ̃, blɑ̃ʃ]
white
Blanc, blanche – white in French
Word origin
According to Wiktionary.org, the Modern French adjective and noun blanc comes from blancus in Latin. Another word for white in Latin is albus.
Example sentences
This first sentence is audiobiographical. I wrote this lesson while in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and saw an albino horse on the side of the road. I’ve included a picture of the cheval blanc at the to bottom of the page.
J’ai vu un cheval blanc au bord de la rue au Mexique.
I saw a white horse on the side of the road in Mexico.
This second sentence uses the feminine for of white: blanche. This lesson explains the difficult pronunciation of les États-Unis (United States).
Le président des États-Unis habite dans la Maison Blanche.
The president of the United States lives in the White House.
The purpose of this sentence is to simply highlight that the gender of the adjective must change based on the gender of the noun it’s describing. This lesson covers clothing vocabulary.
Je porte une chemise blanche et un pantelon blanc.
I’m wearing a white shirt and white pants.
When refering to white as a noun, say le blanc. This blog post explains the meaning of the colors of the French flag.
Les couleurs du drapeau français sont le blue, le blanc et le rouge.
The colors of the French flag are blue, white and red.
Conclusion
Et voilà ! You now know how to say white (blanc, blanche) in French! Now check our our lesson explaining color names in depth.
