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Nous avons visité un monastère ancien pendant cette période.

Nous avons visité un monastère ancien pendant cette période.
We visited an ancient monastery during this period.
From Lesson 267:Meaning-changing adjectives·French

Questions & Answers about Nous avons visité un monastère ancien pendant cette période.

Why is ancien after monastère here instead of before it?
The meaning of ancien changes depending on where you put it. When it comes after the noun, like un monastère ancien, it means "old" or "ancient" (a genuinely old building). If it came before the noun (un ancien monastère), it would mean "a former monastery" (a building that used to be a monastery but might be something else now).
Could I use the verb visiter if I visited a monk who lived there?
No. In French, you use visiter only for exploring places (like a monastery, a museum, or a city). If you want to say you visited a person, you must use the expression rendre visite à.
Why do we use pendant for "during" here instead of pour?
Pendant is used to express the duration or timeframe of an action that has already happened, translating to "during" or "for". You usually use pour for planned future durations, like going on a trip "for" two weeks. Since this visit is a completed past action, pendant is the correct choice.
Why is it cette période and not ce période?
The word période is feminine in French, so you must use the feminine demonstrative adjective cette (meaning "this" or "that"). If the noun were masculine, you would use ce (or cet before a vowel sound).

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