Ma grand-mère a encore une très bonne mémoire pour les chansons de son enfance.

Because grand-mère is a feminine singular noun, so the possessive adjective is ma.

A useful reminder:

• mon = my + masculine singular noun
• ma = my + feminine singular noun
• mes = my + plural noun

So:

• ma grand-mère = my grandmother
• mon grand-père = my grandfather

Also, in French, the possessive adjective agrees with the thing possessed, not with the speaker.

Grand-mère is a fixed compound noun, and standard French writes it with a hyphen.

The same pattern appears in:

• grand-père
• arrière-grand-mère
• arrière-grand-père

So you should learn grand-mère as one set expression meaning grandmother.

A is the third-person singular present form of avoir:

• j’ai
• tu as
• il/elle a

So Ma grand-mère a... means My grandmother has...

This is important because French often uses avoir in expressions where English also uses have, including:

• avoir une bonne mémoire = to have a good memory
• avoir faim = to be hungry
• avoir peur = to be afraid

Here, a is simply the main verb of the sentence.

Here, encore means still, not again.

So the idea is that your grandmother still has a very good memory for those songs.

Encore can mean different things depending on context:

• encore = still
• encore = again
• sometimes even another / more

In this sentence, still is the natural meaning because it suggests that despite age or time passing, she continues to remember the songs well.

In simple French sentences, adverbs like encore, bien, souvent, and déjà often come after the conjugated verb.

So:

• Ma grand-mère a encore...

That placement is very normal in French.

Compare:

• Il travaille encore. = He is still working.
• Elle aime encore cette chanson. = She still likes that song.

English and French do not always place adverbs in the same spot, so this is something learners often just need to get used to.

French commonly says avoir une bonne mémoire for to have a good memory.

So:

• une mémoire = a memory
• une bonne mémoire = a good memory
• une très bonne mémoire = a very good memory

This is an idiomatic French pattern. Even though English sometimes speaks more generally about memory, French naturally uses avoir une bonne mémoire.

Also, mémoire is a feminine noun, which is why you get:

• une
• bonne

not:

• un
• bon

Many French adjectives usually come after the noun, but some very common adjectives often come before it. Bon / bonne is one of those.

So:

• une bonne mémoire is normal
• not une mémoire bonne

This belongs to a group of common adjectives that often go before the noun, especially adjectives of:

• beauty
• age
• goodness
• size

Learners sometimes remember this with the BAGS idea, and bon fits the goodness group.

Also, très modifies bonne, so:

• une très bonne mémoire

Here, pour means something like for / when it comes to / with.

So avoir une bonne mémoire pour quelque chose means:

• to have a good memory for something
• to be good at remembering a certain kind of thing

Examples:

• Il a une bonne mémoire pour les noms. = He has a good memory for names.
• Elle a une mauvaise mémoire pour les dates. = She has a bad memory for dates.

So pour les chansons tells you the area in which her memory is especially good.

French usually uses an article where English might leave one out.

Here, les chansons refers to a particular set of songs: the songs from her childhood.

So the definite article les makes sense because these are not just songs in general. They are a known category, later specified by:

• de son enfance

In French, bare plural nouns are much less common than in English, so pour les chansons sounds natural.

This is a very common French question.

Even though enfance is a feminine noun, French uses:

• mon
• ton
• son

before a feminine noun starting with a vowel or silent h

So:

• son enfance
• mon amie
• ton école

This is done mainly to make pronunciation smoother and avoid a clash of vowel sounds.

So son enfance does not mean the noun is masculine. Enfance is still feminine.

By itself, son can mean his, her, or sometimes its, depending on context.

In this sentence, it clearly refers to ma grand-mère, so it means her childhood.

That is because French possessive adjectives agree with the noun being possessed:

• son enfance because enfance is feminine but begins with a vowel sound
• not because the owner is masculine

So you must use context to know whether son means his or her.

It describes les chansons.

So the structure is:

• une très bonne mémoire
• pour les chansons
• de son enfance

In other words:

• she has a very good memory
• for the songs
• from her childhood

So de son enfance tells you which songs we mean: the songs of her childhood.

They affect pronunciation.

• mère has è, which gives an open eh sound
• très also has è, giving that same open vowel sound

So:

• mère sounds roughly like mehr
• très sounds roughly like treh

The accents are not optional decorations. They are part of the spelling and often help show pronunciation and distinguish words.

For example:

• tres is not correct French
• très is the correct spelling