Questions & Answers about La quatrième équipe a gagné.
How do you form quatrième from the number quatre?
To create an ordinal number (like fourth, fifth, or tenth), you generally add -ième to the regular number. Because quatre ends in an -e, you drop that final -e before adding the ending, making it quatrième.
Why is quatrième placed before the noun équipe? I thought most French adjectives came after the noun.
You are right that most descriptive adjectives follow the noun. However, ordinal numbers (words that tell you the position in a series, like premier, deuxième, and quatrième) are an exception and always go before the noun.
Since équipe is a feminine noun, why doesn't the past participle gagné have an extra -e at the end?
The verb gagner uses the auxiliary verb avoir (here as a) to form the past tense. When using avoir, the past participle never agrees with the subject (La quatrième équipe). It only agrees with a direct object if that object is placed before the verb.
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