Le jardin est magnifique aujourd'hui.

Jardin is a masculine singular noun, so its definite article is le.

• le jardin = the garden
• un jardin = a garden

The sentence uses le because it is talking about the garden, not just any garden.

In French, every noun has a grammatical gender, either masculine or feminine. You usually have to learn the gender together with the noun:

• le jardin = garden

There is not always a perfect rule you can rely on, so it is best to memorize nouns with their article.

Est is the third-person singular form of the verb être meaning to be.

The subject is Le jardin = the garden, which is it in English, so French uses:

• il/elle/on est = is

That is why the sentence says:

• Le jardin est magnifique = The garden is magnificent

Because magnifique is describing the subject through the verb être.

This is called a predicate adjective. In both English and French, these usually come after a form of to be:

• The garden is magnificent
• Le jardin est magnifique

So here, magnifique is not directly placed next to the noun; it comes after est because it is part of is magnificent.

Some French adjectives change clearly depending on gender and number, but magnifique looks the same in the masculine singular and feminine singular.

Examples:

• un jardin magnifique
• une maison magnifique

The spelling changes only in the plural:

• des jardins magnifiques
• des maisons magnifiques

So in this sentence, magnifique stays exactly as it is.

Yes, but it means something slightly different in feel.

• Le jardin est magnifique = The garden is magnificent.
• Le magnifique jardin = the magnificent garden

In le magnifique jardin, the adjective directly describes the noun. That can sound more literary, emphatic, or stylistic.

In your sentence, est magnifique is simply the normal way to say that the garden is magnificent.

French often places time expressions like aujourd'hui at the beginning or end of a sentence.

So these are both possible:

• Le jardin est magnifique aujourd'hui.
• Aujourd'hui, le jardin est magnifique.

Putting aujourd'hui at the end is very natural and neutral. Putting it at the beginning gives it a bit more emphasis.

Aujourd'hui means today.

Historically, it comes from an older expression that literally meant something like on the day of today. That history is why it has an apostrophe and looks unusual.

For a learner, the important thing is simply to treat aujourd'hui as one fixed word meaning today.

A simple pronunciation guide is:

luh zhar-DAN ay ma-nyee-FEEK oh-zhoor-DWEE

A few useful notes:

• j in jardin sounds like the s in measure
• the in in jardin is a nasal sound
• the t in est is usually not pronounced
• gn in magnifique sounds like ny
• aujourd'hui has the sound dwee at the end

A more French-like IPA pronunciation is:

/lə ʒaʁdɛ̃ ɛ maɲifik oʒuʁdɥi/

Usually, no important liaison is made here in normal speech.

• Le jardin est: no liaison from jardin to est
• est magnifique: the final t of est is normally not pronounced here

So learners can safely say the words separately without trying to force a liaison.

Grammatically, you might hear it, but it is often not the most natural choice.

Magnifique is already a strong adjective, so French often prefers:

• Le jardin est vraiment magnifique aujourd'hui. = The garden is really magnificent today.
• Le jardin est très beau aujourd'hui. = The garden is very beautiful today.

So très magnifique is not impossible, but many speakers would prefer another wording.

No. In French, nouns usually need an article or another determiner.

So you say:

• Le jardin est magnifique aujourd'hui.

Not:

• Jardin est magnifique aujourd'hui.

French uses articles much more consistently than English does.

French does use a subject, but here the subject is the full noun phrase Le jardin.

So:

• Le jardin est magnifique = The garden is magnificent

If you had already mentioned the garden and wanted to replace it with it, you could say:

• Il est magnifique aujourd'hui.

Here, il means it, referring to le jardin.