"Vous êtes retournés dans la maison de votre enfance."

Question

The translation -' you went back to your childhood house' is not something we would say in english english. We would either say 'childhood home' or ' the house I lived in in my childhood'. I'm trying to work out why this is and it has something to do with the word childhood as an abstract noun. Childhood is never an adjective. ' Childhood home' is a kind of double noun, an inversion of 'home of my childhood' . I'm afraid I'm not a linguist so dont have the grammar to describe this. I just know it sounds very odd, and feels wrong.

Accepted Answer

Hi Chris, 
Thank you for pointing this out, we changed the English to ‘ childhood home’ which was our preferred option too in the end .
Bonne Continuation!

Answer

It's possible to use a noun as a qualifier, which is effectively an adjective - e.g. "chicken soup". That's what's happening here, so "childhood house" is not wrong, exactly, but it sounds odd to me, too, because I consider "childhood home" to be the normal term. However, "childhood house" does get plenty of hits on Google.

I think noun qualifiers will often sound inappropriate, unless they have come into habitual use. "Childhood sweetheart" is fine, "childhood girlfriend" sounds wrong.

By the way, we normally say "British English" - unless you have a reason for specifying England only?