At the zoo: 'il, elle' (it) and adjective agreement

The SSC (sound-symbol correspondence) [ien] is pronounced as in the word 'chien'. In French all nouns are either masculine or feminine. This is grammatical gender. It is not the same as male or female. In English, we refer to pets as ‘he’ or ‘she’ but we use ‘it’ to refer to animals in general. In French, we use il (he) and elle (she) to mean it. We use il and elle to refer both to pets and to animals in general. Adjectives must match the gender of the noun they describe in French. Regular adjectives add an -e in the feminine form.