Breakdown of La nuit suivante, Marie fait un cauchemar inquiétant et se réveille très fatiguée.
Questions & Answers about La nuit suivante, Marie fait un cauchemar inquiétant et se réveille très fatiguée.
French often uses the present tense for narration, called le présent de narration or présent historique. It’s very common in stories, novels, and spoken storytelling.
- In English, you might say: “The following night, Marie had a disturbing nightmare and woke up very tired.”
- In French, for a more vivid, “live” style, you can say:
La nuit suivante, Marie fait un cauchemar inquiétant et se réveille très fatiguée.
Grammatically, you could also put it in a past tense:
- La nuit suivante, Marie a fait un cauchemar inquiétant et s’est réveillée très fatiguée. (standard past narration)
- La nuit suivante, Marie fit un cauchemar inquiétant et se réveilla très fatiguée. (literary, passé simple)
Using the present here is a stylistic, not a grammatical, issue: it gives a feeling that events are happening “now” as we tell them.
Both exist, but faire un cauchemar is more idiomatic and frequent.
- faire un cauchemar = “to have a nightmare,” but literally “to make/do a nightmare.”
- avoir un cauchemar is understood, but less natural in everyday French.
French often uses faire + noun where English uses “to have + noun”:
- faire un rêve = to have a dream
- faire un cauchemar = to have a nightmare
- faire un bruit = to make a noise
- faire une erreur = to make a mistake
So Marie fait un cauchemar is the most natural way to say “Marie has a nightmare.”
There is no reliable rule from the word’s form that tells you cauchemar is masculine; you just have to learn the noun together with its article:
- un cauchemar (a nightmare) → masculine
- le cauchemar (the nightmare) → masculine
In this sentence, its gender is visible in the agreeing adjective:
- un cauchemar inquiétant
inquiétant ends in -ant, which is the usual masculine form.
The feminine would be inquiétante.
This is why you see inquiétant (masculine) and not inquiétante here. The agreement tells you cauchemar is masculine.
inquiétant comes from the verb inquiéter (to worry, to disturb), so:
- inquiétant ≈ worrying, disturbing, unsettling, creepy.
effrayant comes from effrayer (to frighten), so:
- effrayant ≈ frightening, scary, terrifying.
Both can describe nightmares, but:
- un cauchemar inquiétant suggests something that makes you anxious, uneasy, mentally disturbed.
- un cauchemar effrayant emphasizes more straightforward fear or terror.
The choice is a nuance of tone. The sentence picked inquiétant to highlight the disturbing nature of the nightmare rather than pure horror.
Most adjectives in French normally come after the noun:
- un cauchemar inquiétant
- un livre intéressant
- une histoire étrange
Some common, short adjectives can go before the noun, like grand, petit, beau, bon, mauvais, jeune, vieux, etc. inquiétant is not one of these.
You could say un inquiétant cauchemar in a literary/poetic style, but in everyday French, un cauchemar inquiétant is the standard word order.
se réveiller is a reflexive verb meaning “to wake up (oneself).” The pattern is:
- je me réveille – I wake up
- tu te réveilles – you wake up
- il/elle se réveille – he/she wakes up
- etc.
In Marie se réveille, Marie is both the subject and the person affected by the action (she wakes herself up).
Without se, réveiller usually means “to wake someone (else) up”:
- Je réveille Marie. – I wake Marie (up).
- Marie réveille son frère. – Marie wakes her brother (up).
So se réveille is required here because Marie is the one waking up herself.
Because the adjective fatigué / fatiguée agrees with the subject, Marie, who is grammatically feminine.
- masculine: fatigué
- feminine: fatiguée
- masculine plural: fatigués
- feminine plural: fatiguées
In the sentence:
- Subject: Marie (feminine singular)
- Adjective: fatiguée (feminine singular to match Marie)
So: Marie se réveille très fatiguée.
If the subject were a man:
- Paul se réveille très fatigué.
Here fatiguée is just an adjective, describing Marie’s state:
- Marie est fatiguée. – Marie is tired.
- Marie se réveille fatiguée. – Marie wakes up (while being) tired.
There is no hidden auxiliary; we’re not saying “has tired” or “is tired out (by something just done).” It’s simply:
- verb: se réveille (wakes up)
- adjective: fatiguée (tired)
You can think of it as: “Marie wakes up, very tired.”
très is an adverb meaning very, and in French, adverbs like très normally go directly before the adjective or adverb they modify:
- très fatiguée – very tired
- très inquiet – very worried
- très lentement – very slowly
You wouldn’t say fatiguée très. That would be incorrect.
Other common adverbs that behave like this:
- vraiment fatiguée – really tired
- assez fatiguée – quite/pretty tired
- trop fatiguée – too tired
Yes, bien fatiguée is possible and quite natural in spoken French, but the nuance is a little different:
- très fatiguée – clearly, strongly tired; neutral and standard.
- bien fatiguée – colloquial; often feels a bit more conversational or expressive, like “really tired” or “pretty tired.”
Examples:
- Je suis très fatigué aujourd’hui. – I’m very tired today.
- Je suis bien fatigué aujourd’hui. – I’m really/pretty tired today. (more informal tone)
In the given sentence, très fatiguée is neutral and fits well in both written and spoken French.
Both suivant(e) and prochain(e) can mean “following/next,” but they’re not always interchangeable.
Here, la nuit suivante means “the following night” relative to a previously mentioned time. This is very common in narratives:
- Le lendemain, … – The next day / the following day
- La nuit suivante, … – The following night
prochain(e) is more often used for “next” from now (in real time):
- la semaine prochaine – next week
- la prochaine fois – next time
- l’année prochaine – next year
You could say la nuit prochaine in real life if you mean “tomorrow night” from the speaker’s present. But in a story continuing from a previous scene, la nuit suivante is the usual choice.
suivante agrees with la nuit, which is feminine singular.
- masculine singular: suivant
- feminine singular: suivante
- masculine plural: suivants
- feminine plural: suivantes
Since nuit is feminine:
- la nuit suivante – the following night
- but: le jour suivant – the following day (masculine)
Placing La nuit suivante at the beginning is a time expression that sets the scene, just like in English:
- “The following night, Marie has a disturbing nightmare…”
This is very common in French: put a time or place expression at the start:
- Le lendemain, il part. – The next day, he leaves.
- Ce matin, j’ai vu Paul. – This morning, I saw Paul.
The comma after La nuit suivante is standard and helps separate the time phrase from the main clause. You could technically omit it in very informal writing, but it’s good practice to include it.
Approximate pronunciation (in IPA):
- La nuit suivante, Marie fait un cauchemar inquiétant et se réveille très fatiguée.
/la nɥi sɥi.vɑ̃t ma.ʁi fɛ ɛ̃ ko.ʃ(ə).maʁ ɛ̃.kje.tɑ̃ e sə ʁe.vɛj tʁɛ fa.ti.ɡe/
Points to notice:
- nuit suivante: you often hear a slight link: nui-suivante
- fait un: in casual speech, fait may sound like /fɛ/ and un like a nasal vowel /œ̃/: fɛ-œ̃
- inquiétant: the in- is nasal (/ɛ̃/), and the final -t is pronounced (/tɑ̃/).
- se réveille: se is usually a weak /sə/; réveille ≈ /ʁe.vɛj/.
- très: pronounced /tʁɛ/, with a clear r.
- fatiguée: /fa.ti.ɡe/, with no pronounced final -e; the accent é is /e/, like “ay” in “day” but shorter.
There are no mandatory tricky liaisons beyond the natural linking of words when spoken smoothly.