If you look behind me, on the ancient wall of the city...

Question

Hello, I was doing the writing exercise, Catherine Ségurane: a local heroine, I came across this sentence:

If you look behind me, on the ancient wall of the city,

I put ancien after mur but the correct answer is:

Si vous regardez derrière moi, sur l'ancien mur de la cité

And no, there was no hint about that. I really don't understand why we use ancien before the noun in that case.

Accepted Answer

Bonjour Z.T.,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention, as a result, we have decided to accept both positions of the adjective 'ancien' as explained by all the contributors above.
Bonne Continuation !

Answer

Some adjectives in French can change meaning depending on where they are put.

La Maison Ancienne = The old house (Literally one that is ancient and probably comes from 900 BCE or another time in antiquity)

L'Ancienne Maison = The old house (One that is old in a figurative sense, like someone's former house)

Answer

ZT,

in this context, the walls are indeed ' old ', but they also no longer serve the function of 'walling in' the city, or ' walling out ' the invaders.

The use of ' ancien ' in front of the noun emphasises this figurative aspect of being ' former ' city walls .

Answer

You're right: l'ancien mur carries the meaning of a wall that formerly used to be the city wall but today it isn't anymore. It doesn't convey the simple meaning of "old wall". Maybe one of the kwiziq team members can shed some light on this?