French language Q&A Forum

i don't understand the translation. why is "she would read" translated to "elle lisait" and not "elle lirait"?

i thought that "would" is conditional verb in english so it should be translated too to conditionnel in french? need any explication

I am curious about the construction of ...fait de lui...  Why not ...lui fait...?  It seems to me that 'him', in the English, is the indirect object of faire while Français is the direct object.  I used ...lui fait..., which was not one of the accepted translations.   Why?

I'm fully aware that student counts as an occupation, that the article comes in when there's an adjective, etc. What's confusing me is that is I've encountered people using the article with student (and only with student, no other occupations), with even some statements from native speakers online who say "X est un étudiant" feels more natural to them. I've also seen some other programs teach this as well; I'm well aware this is a different program, and am only stating how muddy waters seem on this! 

Is there a variation or shift occurring in the language (akin to the après que + subj. vs indic.)? Thanks!

One of the hardest ones yet! It showed me that I am clearly not ready for a French aerobics class yet, so at least there's that, haha! 

tu lis pour te relaxer, you read to relax,  why te is used  for to and not au?

Michel ne rêvait plus que d'une chose:

On peut aussi dire

Michel ne rêvait de plus qu'une chose. ??

Ok, I should have heard the "la" but I didn't - and I put "le mi-août" because août is masculine. Is it, then, the case that if you use the prefix "mi-" the whole thing ( "mi-qqch") invariably becomes feminine?

Why is it that when you want to say new before the consonants, you say 'nouveau' but when you want to say new hotel, you say "nouvel hotel" because 'h' is a not a vowel

I think I've finally gotten the "ce qui" vs "ce que" vs. "qui/e" down, but I'm utterly confused about when "quoi" is used.  When I see "what is," I invariably think "quoi," but I'm usually wrong.  The best rule I've determined is to use "quoi" with an infinitive, "je ne sais pas quoi faire," but is that really it for "quoi"?  Thanks!

Would it be acceptable to say « une question très dure » instead of « très difficile »? If not, what is the difference between dure and difficile?