French language Q&A Forum

Hi,

Can someone please explain what this means? Although I have known French for decades, it really didn't seem to make any sense. To be honest, I am very surprised this is level A1, as even I struggled with it and I got really confused when trying to complete the dictation, especially with this sentence.

Thanks

Is there some reason you don't cover Le Passé Antérieur in your lessons? Although it's probably not common, I'd still like to understand the structure. Am I correct to translate "I left after I'd eaten" ... or ... "after I'd eaten I left" as

- Je fus parti aprés que j'eus mangé

- Aprés que j'eus mangé, je fus parti

And am I also correct to translate "you left after you'd eaten" ... or ... "after you'd eaten you left" as

- vous fûtes parti aprés que vous eûtes mangé

- Aprés que vous eûtes mangé, vous fûtes parti

In both cases I'm not sure if both verbs use antérieur form, or just the "after" verb?

There is a sentence " Ma mère nous a récompensés pour __nous être comportés______ correctement." in the tests  for this lesson.

Where do you place adverbs with the passive voice verb. The placement of "correctement" at the end could be justified because it is a "long" adverb. But it also does modify the verb "se comporter". Where would an adverb like "bien"  go?

I notice in the phrase 'était apparue gracieusement sur cet étrange engin' the adverb is placed after the participle, not the conjugated verb. Am I right in thinking adverbs normally go directly after the conjugated verb ?

What about when it is du in front of a thing? Is it still en or y?

My mind gets quite confused by combining the past with the present (subjunctive) in one sentence. This is more a question about the subjunctive mode than about rentrer, but could you explain in which situations you use le passe of the subjunctive? If this sentence used parce que, rather than avant que, what tense would you use? (something like "Mathilde a rentre la voiture parce qu'il allait pleuvoir"? - sorry, no accents; if this structure exists, I wouldn't know what the tense is called!)

Thanks in advance for your clarification!

The son WAS born in the past?  Why then use "est né" rather that "était né"?