Language/French/Grammar/Adjectives-modified-by-adverbs-and-prepositional-phrases

Adjectives modified by adverbs and prepositional phrases

When adjectives which normally precede the noun are modified by adverbs or prepositional phrases, they may appear after the noun. The longer the modifying expression, the more likely this is:

French	English
un bel homme	a handsome man
un très bel homme	a very handsome man
un homme vraiment beau	a really handsome man
un gros effort	a great effort
un effort démesurément gros	an inordinately large effort
une jolie figure	a pretty face
une figure un peu trop jolie	a face which is a bit too pretty
un grand jardin	a large garden
un jardin grand comme un mouchoir de poche	a garden the size of your hand

This also applies to superlatives:

French	English
un bref aperçu	a brief outline
le plus bref aperçu	the briefest outline
un aperçu des plus brefs	the briefest of outlines

Other Lessons

• Order of unstressed object pronouns when more than one is present
• Grammatical and real gender
• Masculine and feminine forms of adjectives — No change in written or spoken French
• Use of the definite article with seasons
• Adjectives
• Impersonal vs Personal
• Function of adverbs
• Omission of the article after sans, avec, en, sur, sous, par, ni
• on as an equivalent for English 'you'
• Non specific use of y
• Formation of the passive in French
• Negation
• Often Mistaken Gender of Nouns
• Manner adverbs
• Pronominal verbs, the auxiliary “être” and the agreement of the past participle