Breakdown of Ils ont souvent fait des rêves bizarres.
il
he
des
some (plural indefinite)
souvent
often
avoir
to have
faire
to do, to make
bizarre
strange
le rêve
the dream
Questions & Answers about Ils ont souvent fait des rêves bizarres.
Why is souvent placed right in the middle of the verb ont fait?
In French compound tenses like the passé composé, short and common adverbs of frequency or quantity (such as souvent, bien, déjà, and beaucoup) are placed directly between the auxiliary verb (ont) and the past participle (fait). Even though English places the adverb before the whole verb phrase ("often had"), French tucks it inside.
The translation says "had weird dreams," so why does the French sentence use fait instead of eu?
Why is it des rêves instead of de rêves?
You use des because it is the standard plural indefinite article (meaning "some"). A common B1 pitfall is remembering that des changes to de when an adjective comes before a plural noun (like de mauvais rêves). However, because the adjective bizarres comes after the noun here, des stays exactly as it is.
Why does the adjective bizarres come after rêves?
Most French adjectives come after the noun they describe. Only a specific, limited group of short adjectives (often memorized with the acronym BANGS: Beauty, Age, Number, Goodness, and Size) go before the noun. Because bizarres does not fit into those special categories, it follows the standard rule and goes after.
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