J'ai passé un an en Espagne

Question

That example doesn't make sense to me, if they are referring to the duration of time they spent in Spain, then why use an instead of année ? Even without the need of emphasizing the amount of time they spent in Spain, wouldn't the usage of année be required anyways due to the rule stating that you should use it when considering the amount of time in it's duration ?

Accepted Answer

Hi Alan, 
Just to add to what has already been said, here the emphasis is on the time unit, one year, not weeks or months or multiple years. 
But if you wanted to emphasise the duration of the year you would use 'année' -
L'année que j'ai passé en Espagne m'a semblé très longue = The year I spent in Spain seemed very long to me
Bonne Continuation !

Answer

Salut Alan,"J'ai passé un an en Espagne"The direct object is "un an" where "an" is a masculine noun. The subject has "paid a visit" of one year (time unit) in that location (Espagne).If the meaning were meant to be expressed otherwise, as you propose; then the sentence would need to have une année (duration) as the direct object.It is not possible to speculate as to what was in the mind of the subject.Bonne JournéeJim

Answer

Counting starts with one, so un an is perfectly ok if you want to say that you spent one year and not two or three in France. In this case the emphysis is on counting years and hence you use an.

Answer

Answering my own question, could it be that you use an when the importance of your statement is that you spent some time in Spain, instead of the amount of time you spent there ? By that logic you would use année only when the amount of time you spent in Spain is important to the conversation, do I get it right ?