Je viens des États-Unis, j’habite en Espagne, mais je vais en France.  (I’m from the United States, I live in Spain but, I’m going to France.)  This is a simple sentence, some part of which is often used when meeting people in international contexts, but which in French can sometimes seem complicated to English speakers because of the grammar rules regarding prepositions (in, to, from) and the confusion about how countries can be either masculine or feminine and some plural.  In this article, I’ll try to shed some light on the issue.

J’habite + (masculine country) au Portugal.
  (feminine country) en France.
  (country that begins with a vowel) en Italie.
  (plural country) aux États-Unis.
  (city) à Londres.
   
Je vais + (masculine country) au Portugal.
  (feminine country) en France.
  (country that begins with a vowel) en Italie.
  (plural country) aux États-Unis.
  (city) à Londres.
   
Je viens + (masculine country) du Portugal.
  (feminine country) de France.
  (country that begins with a vowel) d’Italie.
  (plural country) des États-Unis.
  (city) de Londres.
  (city that begins with a vowel) d’Amsterdam.

Now, here’s a list of some countries in columns according to gender/plurality.

la France le Portugal les États-Unis
la Chine le Brésil les Pays-Bas
la Grèce le Togo les Fidji
la Russie le Sénégal les Émirats Arabes Unis
la Suisse le Maroc les Philippines
l’Allemagne l’Afghanistan les Bahamas
l’Italie  le Mexique les États Fédérés de Micronésie
l’Argentine le Belize les Salomon
l’Espagne le Cambodge les Maldives

As you may have noticed above, the rule for countries is: almost all countries that end in -e are considered to be feminine for grammatical purposes.  The exceptions are:
le Mexique
le Belize
le Cambodge
le Mozambique
le Zaïre
le Zimbabwe

The same rules for countries apply to continents.  In fact, all continents end in -e and are considered to be feminine for grammatical purposes.  (L’Asie, l’Amérique du Nord, l’Amérique du Sud, l’Afrique, l’Antarctique, l’Australie, l’Europe)

Vous êtes d’où? (Where are you from?)
Vous habitez où? (Where do you live?)

I encourage all of you to answer these two questions in a comment…not only will you be able to practice your French, but it would be interesting to find out about the people who read this blog.

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