help me with French?

This problem as you can see in the link below is one of the most difficult to clarify.

So it is impossible even for french to understand if there is a rule and how to explain it.

There is influence of the sound, a sound difficult to pronounce will be eliminated and the order will be reversed.

a big car=une grosse voiture if we say une voiture grosse, the liaison -urgr- does not exist in french and leads to reverse the order.

There is influence of the meaning and what you want to stress, if the adjective is after the noun, it will be stressed. You can say 'une voiture grosse' but in this case it means taht the key factor is the fact that the car is big and that you have to remember that for the remaining part of the story.

I take your exemple:

'Un ancien élève' almost means 'an alumni'

'Un élève ancien' is barely used but if it is, it means the key factor is that the pupil is seasonned, like a jedi master who has been learning for three centuries...

And as usual in french there are impossible things:

A red dress=une robe rouge cannot be said une rouge robe. Don't ask me why.

And exceptions:

Un rouge gorge=a nightingale

And stylish way to speak and to write:

Une verte vallée=A green valley

Conclusion, it is only practice that will teach you, but do not stress about that, we french do not give much importance to the small mistakes that foreigners do in our language that we know to be full of traps. There is famous english singer Jane Birkin in France after fourty years full time in France (and two french husbands) she speaks currently french but she is still reversing the noun and adjectives and it adds a lot to her appeal and she is a star...

Right... there is no simple rules about the position of the noun and the adjective, and even worse, it may change the meaning of it.

For example, l'ancienne maison will be usually the house were you were living before and une maison ancienne will be a old house.

But, even if there are exceptions, when an adjective as a meaning of color or shape, it should be behind. As should be the adjectives coming from the past of a verb:

une maison carree, une balle rouge, un pantalon vert

un miroir fele, une maison hantee, une anglaise fatiguee

It is the same for the adjective that define wuithout a doubt a function and could be transformed in de someone or something:

un discours presidentiel, l'autorite parentale...

which is the same as un discours du president, l'autorite des parents

that's for the adjectives which are mostly and mainly coming after the noun...

Anyway, if you want to know more about that subject, just have a look here... you will see that nothing is simple!

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89pith%C3%A8te

That is one of the reason why French is so difficult... And before explaining, let's scare you a little more: sometimes (maybe most of the time), the order of the noun and adjective can determine two different meanings... example: "un homme grand" means a tall man, but "un grand homme" means someone important (for instance, Gandhi was "un grand homme" even if he was small)...

In fact, there is no absolute rule in French about this (and most of the rules in French have many exceptions, in fact)... But the general order between noun and adjective is noun and then adjective...

Let's be a little intuitive about the order you should respect: when you say "un ancien élève", you insist on the word "élève"... Then "ancien" means "former" and not "old"... If you say "un élève ancien", you insist on the adjective, which means he is still a student!

When you say "un soldat fort", you don't mean to insist on the fact that he is a soldier, but on the fact he is strong... However, "un fort soldat" would sound strange, and the tip I'm giving you cannot be considered as always applicable...

Though, some rules are always true in this regard :

- when the adjective represents a color, it is always put after the noun

- when the adjective determines the shape of the object it is always put after the noun

There is no clear view about the others and what I would recommend you is to use the associations noun/adjective that you already have read before, respecting the same meaning as the original context...

If you hesitate, put the short adjectives (1 or 2 syllabs) before the noun and the long ones (more tha 2 syllabs) after the noun... But remember this is only a tip, not a rule...

Anyway, French people (and French speaking Canadian too) are quite patient about this because they know this rule is unclear in French... All the most, they will smile and explain you that the order, in this particular case, is so or so... Or that the order, in that particular case, determines two different meanings...

Experience is the only way to learn French, in fact... But be confident: a French will always help...

as that's been sung in distinctive languages all international huge by using prominent human beings (which comprise Paul Anka, Franck Sinatra and so on...) i think of this music initially french is the main customary: (Como fue cantada en muchos idiomas en todo el mundo por cantantes famosos (como Paul Anka, Franck Sinatra and so on...) me parece que esta de origen francesa es l. a. mas conocida:)

I learned from my girlfriend who is russian speaking that this kind of question is for a french teacher ... and usually those who know the answer are not french speaking.

My girlfriend keeps on asking me why this rule and why that one... And i do the same for russian ... but we both don't know the answer as for us, our native language is intuitive.

My advice would be to take some french lessons with a teacher and ask about that ... sorry man and cheer up !

un ancien élève est une personne qui a fréquenté une école jadis".it attended a school formerly. "

Un élève ,ancien veut dire qu'il est encore à l'école mais depuis longtemps ."it is for a long time in this school."

La position de l'adjectif change le sens de la phrase ..

excuse moi je ne sais pas bien traduire en anglais les subtilités de la langue française.

The position of adjective exchange the direction of the sentence. excuse me I cannot translate well into English subtleties of the French language.

like your language has his own structure, each other language has his structure.Because all language is a language but each language has his own syntaxis,phonetic...you must at first learn to speak the french after to study his grammar.

he is right. The position of the adjective gives a different meaning to the sentence.

Hello, when i learned to speak english i got the same problem ,try to translate a sentence like it is, but some people told me french and english are different , we can't translate them words per words,if you want to say "julie est belle", you can translate it like "julie is beautifull"that's the same thing in french and in english, but if you want to say "le pere de julie est quelque fois bizarre", so you say " sometimes the julie father is funny", i'm not a good teacher but i hope you undrestand what i mean , the best thing you can do is , don't try to translate french and english they can't fit in , and you have to understand than french is a language complicated , and have so much grammatical ruler..........oh sorry if my english is not okay.......oh i'm gonna miss your question they don't have any fix place, that variable, that can depend of the sens of the sentences.

Un soldat fort = un brave .

Un fort soldat = un gros mou de militaire .