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J'ai trouvé une minuscule araignée qui dort dans ma chaussure.

J'ai trouvé une minuscule araignée qui dort dans ma chaussure.
I found a tiny spider that is sleeping in my shoe.
From Lesson 123:Subject relative pronouns (qui)·French

Questions & Answers about J'ai trouvé une minuscule araignée qui dort dans ma chaussure.

Why does this sentence use qui instead of que?
In French, qui is used when the relative pronoun is the subject of the action that comes right after it. Here, the spider is the one doing the sleeping, making it the subject of dort. You use que when the pronoun is the object of the next verb (for example, "the spider that I saw" would be l'araignée que j'ai vue).
Why does minuscule come before the noun araignée?
Most French adjectives go after the noun, but adjectives describing Beauty, Age, Goodness, and Size (often remembered by the acronym BAGS) go before the noun. Since minuscule (tiny) describes size, it is placed in front of araignée.
Why is dort in the present tense if the sentence starts in the past tense?
French lets you mix tenses to describe exactly what is happening in reality. The finding happened in the past (J'ai trouvé), but the spider is currently sleeping right now (qui dort). If the spider was sleeping earlier but isn't anymore, you would use a past tense like qui dormait.
How can I tell from the words in this sentence that chaussure (shoe) is feminine?
The possessive adjective ma (my) directly in front of it is the feminine form. If the word were masculine, it would use mon. You can also spot that araignée (spider) is feminine earlier in the sentence because it uses the feminine article une.

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