The English language is a nonsense.
For example, “Black box”:
In French this would be called a “boîte noire” or literally a “box black”. This seems more logical as first you identify that it is a box you are looking for, secondly that it is black.
For example, “Black box”:
In French this would be called a “boîte noire” or literally a “box black”. This seems more logical as first you identify that it is a box you are looking for, secondly that it is black.
Adjectives can be placed in front or after a word and you also have to guess instinctively which is right.
Ex :
"Un grand homme" (a great man)
"Un homme grand" (a tall man)
Both are valid but don't mean the same thing.
Source : I'm french.
https://translate.google.com/#auto/fr/a%20great%20man a great man => un grand homme
https://translate.google.com/#auto/fr/a%20tall%20man a tall man => un grand homme
In both of these examples, the ordering is the same as English.
So yes by that logic, you're right, French is equal to or worse than English.
When I was learning French in school I was taught that the adjectives that go before nouns are the BANGS adjectives: Beauty Age Number Goodness Size.
So words like tall, big , small, young old, or many are put before the noun while things like color go after.
I'm sure there are counter examples (I only took French for a few years) but it seemed to work very well as a rule of thumb for guessing if you didn't know.