French language Q&A Forum
Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert French teachers
13,789 questions • 29,555 answers • 842,257 learners
Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert French teachers
13,789 questions • 29,555 answers • 842,257 learners
I've always been confused by this: "j'aurai du" translates as "I should have" and not as "I will have had to...." but these are not quite the same, I think. "I will have had to catch the 22 bus" suggests that I did catch that particular bus, to achieve whatever, whereas "I should have" suggests that I didn't catch that bus, and perhaps failed in my intention. Similarly for "j'aurai pu" - "I could have" not "I will have been able".
Any advice/explanation appreciated!
Can you give me some idea of the relative strength of these? I was showing an apartment (I'm a broker) and the French client used "j'adore" to refer to the countertops... which confused me. To an English speaker, "adore" seems like a cognate, but in English we generally wouldn't say "I adore these countertops" -- that would likely come across as either 1) over-the-top or 2) sarcastic.
Does "j'adore" better translate as "I really like" or "I think these are cool/great"? And is it equal in strength to "j'aime"?
An acronym that I like to use is BANGS, which stands for beauty, age, numbers, good/bad, and size.
Adjective relating to these categories usually come before the noun. If you compare this to the list of adjective in the lesson above, you'll see a lot of them fit.
Find your French level for FREE
Test your French to the CEFR standard
Find your French level