French language Q&A Forum

In the second sentence, the conversation has "lui" although it is hard to distinguish "lui" from "leur" with the speaker's intonation.  For the remainder of the conversation, the conversation has "leur" when referring to the recipient(s) of the gift.  While I can get the difference after listening for multiple times, I still find it strange that the two are not consistent.  

Why is the definite article not excluded from:

J'ai peur des araignées.  just as it is excluded from the verbal phrase:

J'ai besoin de farine.  or even : J'ai besoin d'araignées

It seems inconsistent.  Is it?

Hi, why are we using an indirect object in this case? Is the expression "tenir à/par" to hold someone's hand (by the hand)?

Line 9: The audio says "effeuillez d'abord les fleurs," 

.......but d'abord is crossed out as incorrect by kwiziq in my written response.

Bonjour Kwiziq Team,

I completed a question on your website: Aurélie ________ avec sa soeur.

I was trying to decide if it should be "s'est disputée" or "s'est disputé". I thought it would've been the former, since Aurélie is a girl. But I remembered stumbling upon an article about Le cas de non-accord which said:

Le participe passé ne s'accorde pas lorsque le C.O.D. suit le verbe.
Exemples :
- Ils se sont lavé les mains. (COD "les mains" placé après le verbe)
- Ils se sont écrit des lettres. (COD "des lettres" placé après le verbe)
- Ils se sont réparti tous les billets. (COD "tous les billets" placé après le verbe)

Hence, I selected "s'est disputé"" which turned out to be the wrong answer. Can someone explain why? Is it because "sa soeur" is not a C.O.D. and if so, why not?

Thanks very much for all you do! 

I just took the test on the Plus-que-parfait, "Une Envie de Changement". The fill in the blank was: "...on s'etait arretees dans un cafe..." (Sorry, the accents are unavailable here in the Q&A Forum.)

My answer matched the correct answer,but was marked nearly correct. I would like to know why that is? 

The speech on this recording is very unclear. I really struggled to make out the words, even after listening to each phrase multiple times.

In the phrase, "où ils lui ont confisqué son portable",  Why is "lui" there?  If it's a pronoun for "him" why does it need to be there?  (The subject is "they", the verb is "confiscated" and the object is "his mobile phone".)  What grammer rule requires "him" to be part of this sentence?  Is there a lesson that explains the answer (I feel like I've missed something).