"They see each other only once a year, at Christmas."

Translation: Ils se voient seulement une fois par an, à Noël.

[Pierre877533]

What is the difference between 'annee' and 'an'

[IrnBruty]

'Année' is feminin and 'an' is masculin, as for the reason 'année' can't be used in this sentence... I want to know the answer to this too!

[MikeJarvis4]

My understanding is that an is used when you're just using it as a unit of time. And année is used when you mean the whole year as one long time period. So in this case once per year is more like a unit of time, so an is the right word. But if you said something like they lived together all year, it would be, ils s'habitaient ensemble toute l'année. It's a nuance we don't have in English so it's been hard for me too to get it straight.

[Malc_EDWAR]

Any reason "Ils se voient qu'une fois par an, à Noël. " is not acceptable before I 'report' it?

[Zemblane]

Could it be that you need 'Ils ne se...' in order to use the 'que'? Just a suspicion- I'm no expert.

[MohamadIta13]

Ils ne se voient q'une fois ...
It is accepted.

[Vic3141]

Thankyou

[shunting65]

"Ils ne se voient qu'une fois par année, à Noël", marked wrong

[EdxkUK1]

marked wrong because they want an and not annee

[MichaelHaa65689]

it's weird: sometimes I make a mistake like writing voyent when it should be voient and it's marked a typo. Other times, I have a typo like resemblent instead of ressemblent and it's marked a mistake.