Breakdown of Sa grand-mère habite dans une petite maison.
une
a / an (feminine)
petit
small / short
la maison
the house
dans
in, inside
habiter
to live
son
his/her/its (son, sa, ses)
la grand-mère
the grandmother
Questions & Answers about Sa grand-mère habite dans une petite maison.
Why is it sa grand-mère if the English translation says 'His grandmother'? Shouldn't 'his' be masculine?
In French, possessive adjectives like son, sa, and ses match the noun that is owned, not the owner! Because grand-mère (grandmother) is a feminine noun, we must use the feminine form sa. This means sa grand-mère can translate to 'his grandmother', 'her grandmother', or even 'its grandmother' depending on who we are talking about.
Why does petite come before maison? I thought adjectives usually go after the noun.
You are right that most French adjectives come after the noun. However, a small group of common, short adjectives comes before it. A helpful trick is the acronym BANGS: adjectives describing Beauty, Age, Number, Goodness, and Size go before the noun. Since petite (small) describes Size, it goes right before maison.
How can I tell that maison (house) is a feminine noun just by looking at this sentence?
You can spot its gender by looking at the words attached to it! It uses the feminine article une (a) and the feminine adjective petite (which has an extra -e added to the masculine form petit). When learning new words, it is a great habit to memorize them with their article, like une maison.
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