Le garçon reçoit un beau trophée.

Questions & Answers about Le garçon reçoit un beau trophée.

How does the verb recevoir work here, and why does reçoit have a cedilla (ç)?
Reçoit is the he/she/it form of the irregular verb recevoir (to receive). The cedilla (ç) is added under the letter c to keep the soft s sound before the letter o. Without it, the word would be pronounced with a hard k sound. You also need the cedilla for the I and you forms: je reçois and tu reçois.
Why does the adjective beau come before trophée instead of after it?
Most French adjectives go after the noun, but short, common adjectives describing Beauty, Age, Number, Goodness, and Size (often remembered by the BANGS rule) go before it. Since beau (beautiful) describes beauty, it sits right in front of trophée.
The word trophée ends in -ée. Doesn't that usually make a French word feminine?
You have good instincts! Most nouns ending in -ée are indeed feminine (like une idée or la journée). However, un trophée is a masculine exception, which is why it uses un and beau instead of une and belle. You just have to memorize it, much like un musée (a museum) and un lycée (a high school).

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