French language Q&A Forum

“au-dessus de l’assiette “. When I read this I picture the cutlery floating over the plate. “Dessus de l’assiette” I can imagine the cutlery sitting above the plate. Pouvez-vous m’expliquer pourquoi on utilise au-dessus vs dessus dans cette phrase. 

J'habite à Colombie et toi?

Colombie est trés jollie 

Bienvenue 

Vane

First of all, is it "Vas-tu retourner á faire tes devoirs" or "Vas-tu retourner faire tes devoirs".

 Then, can respond with "Oui, j'y retourne."

Why is my answer (deux milliards d') wrong? The lesson doesn't explain plural milliards.

Elsa has two thousand euros on her account.

Correct: mille
Incorrect: milliards d'

Should you say il est derrière la maison or il est en arrière de la maison or il est arrière la maison.

Would you say les hôtels since hôtels starts with a 'h'? Or is there some form of abbreviation like l' but for the plural term? 

I have two separate questions regarding the same example 

The first is…why do you use “sa tête” to mean “his face”? 

The second is…I am sure that there are many colloquial ways or common ways to express “should have” using the verb avoir in its conditional conjugated form when it’s not followed by “dû”, but is it actually proper French grammar? For instance, in one of the above examples, it reads: “Tu aurais vu sa tête quand je suis apparu devant lui.”  Its translation is “You should have seen his face when I appeared in front of him.” Possibly contextually it translates better to should than would. Perhaps if the sentence was “ Tu aurais vu sa tête, si tu avais été là.” Then it’s a true conditional statement-You would have seen his face (condition) if you had been there. So perhaps I’ve answered my question because this really isn’t a conditional statement However, I like rules, I like things to follow those rules (The Container Store is one my happy place-quote from Emily in Paris). I also realize that as I write this, the English language is known for not always following grammatical rules in one sense or another (although I can’t think of any because it makes sense to me as a native English speaker, so please forgive my hypocrisy). Please help me understand when avoir in its conditional form means should when not followed by dû.

Do they both mean the same thing? And if so, why does one of them change depending on whether you are a man or a woman, and one of them doesn't? 

Oh, ça ? Non, c'était la ________ !

Oh, that? No, that was last time!

My Answer - dernière fois

Correct Answer - fois dernière

If "la dernière fois" and "la fois dernière" can be used interchangably (with "la dernière fois being more restrictive") why is my answer wrong ? I don't see any relative clause here as mentioned in the lesson.

I used "les rosiers les plus beaux de" and got marked wrong—is there a reason that construction can't be used (here)?