"The woman has a new pair of jeans."
Translation:La femme a un nouveau jean.
15 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
"New" has 2 sets of translations in French and clearly separate meanings:
A new pair of jeans:
-
Un jean neuf = brand new, never worn
-
Un nouveau jean = new to me/you/her, can be second-hand
"Neuf, neuve, neufs, neuves" are objective and placed after the noun.
"Nouveau, nouvel, nouvelle, nouveaux, nouvelles" are subjective and placed before the noun.
Objective means "based on facts, generally recognized as true": "un jean neuf" was never worn, it just gets out of the factory, it is brand new.
Subjective means "based on opinions/perceptions, relative": "un nouveau jean" has been worn at least once, it was recently bought, when you bought it, it was new or second-hand.
Not all adjectives can be used subjectively (before the noun) or objectively (after the noun), but some have a subjective meaning anyway (BANGS) and others an objective meaning anyway (colors).
- Un petit morceau de gâteau (subjective): what seems "small" too some may be "big" for others.
- J'ai un pantalon jaune (objective): "yellow" is "yellow" even if there are various shades of yellow.
- Dans un récent article (subjective), il a dit...: I don't have the date but it was published what seems to me "not long ago".
- Dans un article récent (objective), il a dit...: I'll give you the date it was published if you ask me.
Some adjectives can change meaning when they are placed before or after a noun:
- Le pauvre homme (subjective) a perdu son portefeuille: I pity him because he has lost his wallet.
- Les hommes pauvres (objective) ne peuvent se faire soigner: They cannot afford to seek care.
Should "...un nouveau jeans" (with an 's') also be accepted. Eg
Le
jeans
homme est intemporel et indémodable. Brice
On the cited page, and on others, I see both singular forms (with and without 's') being used. Take, for instance this page, where the headline has one form, but a similar sentence, in the main article, uses the other:
Porter
un jean bleu
est maintenant interdit à la pétanqueInterdiction de porter
un jeans
à la pétanque?
DL rejected the "jeans" version.
"Un jean" is the proper form for the singular noun. Using "un jeans" is an improper "americanism".
https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/jean/44840?q=jean#44778