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Some tea that I bought yesterday says the following:

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Cardamom Chai
Thé Aux à la Cardamome

None of the entries in the wordreference page for "aux" are for adverb or adjectives.

What does "Aux" mean? Is Cardamome somehow both plural and singular feminine, causing both "aux" and "à la" to be used?

1 Answer 1

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Given the bad quality of the other French translation for "foil packs inside for freshness", I would assume right away that it's just a translation mistake.

Nothing in French is both plural and singular in a way that would justify using both "aux" and "à" at the same time, it's just not a thing. So definitely a translation mistake. the right translation would be : "Thé à la cardamome"

(also "Des emballages aluminium à l'intérieur pour plus de fraîcheur" would be way better for the other one)

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  • is using "intérieur" as an adjective as they have done grammatically correct, but perhaps not idiomatic? (i notice that wordreference does indeed list "intérieur" as an adjective, as well as a noun). what makes "à l'intérieur" more idiomatic?
    – silph
    Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 7:07
  • It is absolutely correct and can be idiomatic, but not used as they did here. It's all a matter of context really, for example "il a une grande beauté intérieure (adj.)" = "he has a great inner beauty" Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 7:25
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    "Emballage intérieur aluminium pour plus de fraîcheur" is perfectly fine. Your proposed alternative is not idiomatic: we we wouldn't use a plural here unless there were multiple inner wrappings inside a single pack. Between "emballage intérieur [en] aluminium" and "emballage [en] aluminium à l'intérieur", it's a matter of whether we assume the existence of an inner wrapping beforehand or not. Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 7:35
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    @Gilles Could you clarify your comment about not using a plural, and "emballage intérieur [en] aluminium" vs "emballage [en] aluminium à l'intérieur"? I don't understand what you mean by "multiple inner wrappings inside a single pack" and "assume the existence of an inner wrapping beforehand or not". I know with the English, it suggests that when I open the box of tea, there are going to be multiple foil packs (and indeed, there were two sealed foil packs, each holding about 20 tea bags). Also: I'm surprised that "Emballage" could be correct even though it has no article!
    – silph
    Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 7:51
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    @Gilles The English version uses a plural "Packs" , hence my suggestion : "des emballages" . Your translation would infer the inner side of the whole containing box is covered in aluminum, which is most probably not the case here. Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 8:52

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