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I've been studying some French vocab and I noticed a few vocab words such as mensonger and passager have two forms: one as a verb, and the other with an "-ère" ending. When I translate both words next to each other, they are shown as the same word. Is there any difference in meaning or just or just function?

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    There is no such verb as mensonger, the verb is mentir and passager as a verb is obsolete.
    – jlliagre
    Commented Dec 16, 2016 at 7:05
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    The fact that a word ends with er does not mean in anyway it is a verb. Both passager and mensonger are adjectives (passager can also be a noun), this will help you to get rules about the feminine of adjectives.
    – None
    Commented Dec 16, 2016 at 8:22

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If you started to study french, I am sure that you realized that there is a concept of grammatical gender.

Le/la
Un/une
Un lapin
Une lapine
Un lapin mensonger!
Une lapine mensongère!

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  • Oh, it's just an irregular form of grammatical gender. I probably should have thought of that considering I've been studying French for three years.... Anyhow, thank you.
    – Morella Almånd
    Commented Dec 16, 2016 at 5:09
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    @MorellaAlmånd It's not actually irregular... The feminine form of words ending in -er usually is -ère, e.g. laitier/laitière, messager/messagère, douanier/douanière, conseiller/conseillère, etc.
    – Kareen
    Commented Dec 16, 2016 at 5:25
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    Yes, I suppose that's true. I just meant as opposed to just adding an, "e" to the end, but I know that many words don't follow that pattern directly. I guess that isn't really considered irregular.
    – Morella Almånd
    Commented Dec 16, 2016 at 5:28
  • You also simply add an "e", but you have to also add an accent to keep correct pronunciation. That's often how it works in French : we change something according to a rule, and then we add accents (or letters) so that the spelling is consistent to the pronunciation. Ex: ambigu takes an "e" when it's feminine, making ambigue, but that would be said "ambig" so we have to add an accent, a tréma here, making: ambigüe
    – Teleporting Goat
    Commented Dec 16, 2016 at 10:48
  • @TeleportingGoat In the rectified orthography. Traditionally, it's ambiguë.
    – Kareen
    Commented Dec 16, 2016 at 16:36

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