Learn French: Avez-vous déjà vu un tel rebond ? - Have you ever seen such a bounce?

Avez-vous déjà vu un tel rebond ?

Have you ever seen such a bounce?

Breakdown of Avez-vous déjà vu un tel rebond ?

Questions & Answers about Avez-vous déjà vu un tel rebond ?

Why is the word order un tel rebond instead of tel un rebond like the English "such a"?

In French, the indefinite article (un or une) always comes before tel or telle. While in English we say "such a [noun]", the French structure is literally "a such [noun]".

Why do we use tel here instead of another form like telle?

Tel acts as an adjective here, so it must agree in gender and number with the noun it modifies. Because rebond (bounce) is a masculine singular noun, we use the masculine singular form tel. If the noun were feminine, like situation, you would say une telle situation.

Why is déjà placed between avez-vous and vu?

In the passé composé (the compound past tense), short adverbs like déjà (already/ever) are placed between the conjugated auxiliary verb and the past participle. Even with the inverted subject and verb (avez-vous), the adverb stays right before the past participle (vu).

Doesn't the phrase déjà vu mean that weird feeling that you've experienced something before?

In English, we borrowed the phrase to describe that specific psychological feeling. In French, however, déjà vu is just the literal combination of déjà (already/ever) and vu (seen). Here, it simply asks if you have "ever seen" this happen.