Is there an order of adjective placement.

MichaelC1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Is there an order of adjective placement.

For instance the dark salty aromatic romanian truffles made in the Lyonnaise style.
Asked 6 years ago
GruffKwiziq team memberCorrect answer

Hi Michael

Yes, there's an order but it's rather more complicated in French than English since some adjectives only go before or after a noun, some can be either but change meaning with position etc. Also, you can't generally just keep tacking them together like in English and after two they tend to be introduced with 'et' or some other connecting word, or the idea is expressed with something more idiomatic.

A broad rule of thumb is to place the adjectives that 'most modify' the noun closest to it, so as they become more nuanced they come later but French is just idiomatically quite different in the treatment of sequences of modifiers and I suspect it would take years of living in France or reading a great deal in French to embed it.

I saw great example on a stackexchange thread:

One of the most popular traditional Japanese recipes.

The original poster suggested une des plus populaires recettes de plats traditionnels japonais but a native French speaker corrected them with the more idiomatic:

(L')une des recettes de plats traditionnels japonais les plus populaires.

 

Hope that helps!

MichaelC1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor
Thanks Gruff , I thought it might be more complicated than in English. Your answer helps clarify it for me.

Is there an order of adjective placement.

For instance the dark salty aromatic romanian truffles made in the Lyonnaise style.

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