Question 1

Why is souvent placed between ont and parlé instead of at the end?

Accepted Answer

In French compound tenses like the passé composé, short or common adverbs (like souvent, bien, or déjà) usually go directly between the helping verb (ont) and the past participle (parlé). In English, we might say 'spoke often' or 'often spoke', but French is much stricter about tucking these short adverbs right inside the verb structure.

Question 2

Why do we use des here instead of les?

Accepted Answer

The verb parler requires the preposition de when you are talking about something. Because rêves is plural, it takes the plural article les. In French, de and les always combine to form the mandatory contraction des.

Question 3

Why does lucides come after rêves instead of before it?

Accepted Answer

Most French adjectives come after the noun they describe. Only a specific group of short, common adjectives (often remembered by the acronym BAGS for Beauty, Age, Goodness, and Size) go before the noun. Since lucides does not fit into those categories, it follows the normal rule and comes directly after rêves.

Question 4

Is there a spoken link (liaison) between ont and souvent?

Accepted Answer

No, you do not make a liaison there. While you must make a mandatory liaison between the pronoun Ils and the vowel in ont (making a Z sound), you never link the T in ont to a word starting with a consonant like souvent.

Ils ont souvent parlé des rêves lucides.

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