Doubt about the position of "au Père Noël"

Question

Hello!
I saw that the correct answer was "la liste au Père Noël de ma fille"; does "lire la liste de ma fille au Père Noël" sounds/is wrong to french ears? Is there some rule or lesson about this?

Thanks in advance,
Luiz

Accepted Answer

Bonjour Luiz,
‘La liste au Père Noël de [+ nom]’ and ‘La liste de [+ nom] au Père Noël’ are both correct and neither would sound wrong to French ears. You would hear the second expression whilst speaking to a French person. It is a more colloquial way of translating the expression.
However, grammatically speaking the first expression is better as it follows the right grammatical order:
my daughter’s list to Santa = la liste au Père Noël de ma fille
Other example:
Marie’s list to Santa = la liste au Père Noël de Marie 
                              la liste de Marie au Père Noël
my son’s letter to Santa = la lettre au Père Noël de mon fils
                                                   la lettre de mon fils au Père Noël
 
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée!

Answer

No, à is correct in this case. It is the same à as in la lettre à mon ami -- the letter to my friend.

la liste au Père Noel de ma fille -- the list addressed to/for Santa Claus of my daughter.

La liste du Père Noel would be a list that Santa Clause wrote himself.

Answer

"La liste du Père Noël" would be the naughty/nice list, but that's not the question that Luiz asked, which was just about the ordering of "de ma fille" and "au Père Noël".

Answer

Correct, Alan. I was too hasty trying to answer a question that wasn't asked.

Answer

Can the acceptance of both word orders Céline mentioned be indicated as correct ? My wife (French) indeed uses the 2nd option as Céline indicates would be heard when speaking to a native French speaker, but this is not currently listed as acceptable.