Questions & Answers about Elle a lu le sixième livre.
Why does sixième come before livre? Don't French adjectives usually go after the noun?
You are right that most French adjectives go after the noun! However, ordinal numbers—words that tell you the position of something in a list, like premier (first), deuxième (second), and sixième (sixth)—always come before the noun they describe.
How is the "x" in sixième pronounced?
In sixième, the "x" is pronounced like an English "z" sound. You will hear this same "z" sound in other ordinal numbers with an "x", such as deuxième (second) and dixième (tenth).
I always forget the gender of livre. Is there a trick to remember why it is le?
The translation says "She read", but doesn't a lu literally mean "has read"?
Yes, word-for-word it is "has read", which is the French passé composé tense. But French uses this single tense for both "She has read" and the simple past "She read". In everyday spoken French, the passé composé is the standard way to talk about completed actions in the past.
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