Adjective after the noun

Question

Why does magnifique come after the noun in "J'ai vu des endroits magnifiques." but before the noun in "Tu as acheté de magnifiques vêtements."If this is the beauty, age, goodness, size rule, wouldn't magnifique be classified as beauty or goodness for both? It must be a different rule I've forgotten about!

Jim Jones · Accepted Answer

Bonjour Janet,
Regarding your two examples:-
After the noun, a descriptive meaning --> great/fantastic/majestic (in a sense of sheer beauty to the eye)
Before the noun, a more abstract meaning  --> great looking / on trend / desirable
Hope this helps
Bonne journée
Jim

Anne Davies · Answer

BAGs isn’t a hard and fast grammatical rule: it does apply to most of the adjectives that go before the noun but you can’t extrapolate to say that because an adjective describes beauty, age etc, it must precede the noun.

Position of French Adjectives - Short and common adjectives that go BEFORE nouns

And as Jim says, a number of adjectives change meaning according to their position.

Ancien = former/old (French Adjectives that change meaning according to position)

(see also the links at the bottom of the lessons)