Hello everyone! Bonjour à tous! 💖 Happy New year, and welcome back to the French Made Easy podcast! This is episode number 106, numéro 106!

This episode is part of the "Common Mistakes in French" series, where I share with you verbs, words, or expressions that often get mixed up! 

And today, we'll look at two confusing words: "an" and "année." They both mean "year." and they are most of the time not interchangeable. I'll explain in a minute.

Before we start, if you're new to the podcast, make sure you have your lesson's cheat sheet in front of you during the lesson. After the lesson, head over to the French Made Easy library to practice what you've learned today. All the links are in the episode notes.

Alright, so let's see the difference between an and année.

1) "an" (year) is generally used to express a unit of time. So it expresses the year as a time unit. It's specific. It's also often used with cardinal numbers. (1, 2, 3, etc.)

Examples:

• Nous sommes allés en Italie il y a deux ans. (We went to Italy two years ago.)
• Elle a 30 ans. (She is 30 years old.)
• Ils étudient le français depuis trois ans. (They have been studying French for three years.)

2) "année" (year) is generally used to express a length of time. It usually expresses the length of time for the whole year, usually between January to December, but of course, it doesn't have to be the calendar year.

And whereas "an" is often used with cardinal numbers (1, 2, 3), "année" is

often used with ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc.), demonstrative adjectives ("cette"/"ces"), and indefinite adjectives ("chaque," "plusieurs," "quelques," etc.) where it doesn't express a specific amount of year.

Examples:

• C'est sa première année de maternelle. (It's her or his first year of kindergarten.) 
• Cette année, j'apprendrai à cuisiner. (This year I will learn to cook.)
• Ils étudient le français depuis plusieurs années. (They have been studying French for several years.)

So in all those examples, you can't replace "an" with "année" and vice versa.

There are some cases where "an" and "année" are interchangeable.

A common example with the expressions "last year" and "next year."

"last year" can be: "l'an dernier" or "l'année dernière" and "next year" can be "l'an prochain" or "l'année prochaine."

Usually, these two expressions are pretty interchangeable. 

Examples:

• J'irai en France l'année prochaine. (I will go to France next year.)
• L'an prochain, j'irai en France. (Next year, I will go to France.)

Attention, very important note:

"An" is a masculine noun, and "année" is a feminine noun. And it matters because you have to make sure you match, at least in that sentence, the adjective with the noun "an" or année."

So don't say: "l'année prochain" ❌ say l'année "prochaine". ✅

I teach all about the agreement in gender and number in my course, French Grammar Made Easy. 

Also another note, for the expression: "every year," you can use both "chaque année" and "tous les ans" interchangeably. 

Examples:

• Je vais en France chaque année. (I go to France every year. I go to France every year.)
• Je vais en France tous les ans.(I go to France every year. I go to France every year.)

(Attention though, not "chaque an" and "toutes les années.")

Recap':

Both "an" and "année" mean "year," but they are most of the time not interchangeable. 

1) "an" (year) is generally used to express a unit of time. It usually expresses the year as a time unit. Often used with cardinal numbers (1, 2, 3.)

• Nous sommes allés en Italie il y a deux ans.

2) "année" is generally used to express a length of time. It usually expresses the length of time for the whole year. Often used with ordinal numbers (first, second, third), demonstrative adjectives (cette/ces) indefinite adjectives (chaque, quelques etc.)

• Cette année, j'apprendrai à cuisiner. 

And that's now the end of today's episode; I hope you enjoyed it. Now you know the difference between "an" and "année." Don't forget to download your lesson's exercises by clicking the link in the episode notes. I'll chat with you next week. À bientôt. 💙