Breakdown of Octobre a trente et un jours.
Questions & Answers about Octobre a trente et un jours.
Why is Octobre capitalized here? Aren't months usually lowercase in French?
Yes, months of the year like octobre are normally written with a lowercase letter in French. However, because it is the very first word of the sentence, it gets a capital letter here, just like in English. Why do we say trente et un (thirty and one) instead of just translating "thirty-one"?
In French, most compound numbers ending in one (like 21, 31, 41, 51, 61, and 71) use the word et (and) before the un. So for 31, you literally say "thirty and one". Is the word a just the letter "a"? What does it mean here?
Here, a is a verb. It is the "he, she, or it" form of the verb avoir (to have). Since octobre acts as an "it", we use a to say "October has". Why doesn't the word un have an "s" if there are thirty-one jours (days)?
In French numbers like trente et un, the word un never takes an "s". It simply acts as the number "one" as part of "thirty-one". Also, jour is a masculine word, so it stays as un and doesn't change to the feminine une. Learn Octobre a trente et un jours and more in French
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