French articles, plurals and gender

Most languages which incorporate gender also have word endings that designate a word as masculine or feminine. But not French! French likes being complicated. There are no clear cut rules* about what word gets what gender, so your options are:

1) Learn the gender along with the word (i.e. learn "pomme" as "lapomme")
2) (Slacker option) Use only "le" or only "la" all the time. You'll get it right 50% of the time.

*-e and -ion are usually feminine endings, but there are exceptions.

So let's look at the articles:

The:
Le (masculine singular)
La (feminine sing.)
L' (contraction of la or le)
Les (plural of masculine or feminine.)

A:
Un (m. sing.)
Une (f. sing)

Some/any:

Du (m. sing)
de la (f. sing.)
de l' (contraction)
des (m. and f. plural)

If you have "de" and "le" together, replace it with "du". "De" and "les" together becomes "des."

Plurals:

You could form plurals by...

-adding s (valise ---> valises)
-adding x to words that end in "au" or "eu" (neveu ---> neveux)
-changing the ending "al" to "aux" (journal ---> journaux)

Note: words ending in s and x don't change. (autobus---> autobus) (prix ---->prix)