Enthusiastic support for the passé simple.Unlike some comment leavers on this page, I *adore* the passé simple and I find it extremely useful.
That probably has a lot to do with the fact that I enjoy reading French history and literature. (For example, Les Trois mousquetaires is an amazing romp ! Much better in the original French than in any English translation that I've seen.)
I would be hopelessly confused in my reading without a solid understanding of the passé simple (to say nothing of the passé antérieur and *all* the tenses of the subjonctif) !
Different people learn French for different purposes. All the purposes are legitimate, in my view. It's a pretty big website, and I support the principle that the lessons should cover as much of la langue française as possible.
That said, I would be grateful to have more coverage of informal French. When I watch movies, I often find myself at a loss to understand what is being said by one character to another, even though I have a pretty good command of C1-level formal French. Maybe mine is a minority interest, but I just want to mention it.
In any case:
Great site! Many thanks!
I listened to that first sentence time and time again and I really cannot hear "Sarah", really sounds like "Ça va".
Unlike some comment leavers on this page, I *adore* the passé simple and I find it extremely useful.
That probably has a lot to do with the fact that I enjoy reading French history and literature. (For example, Les Trois mousquetaires is an amazing romp ! Much better in the original French than in any English translation that I've seen.)
I would be hopelessly confused in my reading without a solid understanding of the passé simple (to say nothing of the passé antérieur and *all* the tenses of the subjonctif) !
Different people learn French for different purposes. All the purposes are legitimate, in my view. It's a pretty big website, and I support the principle that the lessons should cover as much of la langue française as possible.
That said, I would be grateful to have more coverage of informal French. When I watch movies, I often find myself at a loss to understand what is being said by one character to another, even though I have a pretty good command of C1-level formal French. Maybe mine is a minority interest, but I just want to mention it.
In any case:
Great site! Many thanks!
Is the hyphen with 41 correct here? On the page Expressing numbers 70 to 999 in French it says no hyphen for 41?
All of the examples with du chocolat or du cafe translate as some chocolate or some coffee, but in my kwiz it has it listed as nearly correct. I don't really care about the points, but it's confusing for the quiz to not line up with the lesson.
Pourquoi on utilise le subjonctive avec cette phrase:
Ce sont les meilleures vacances qu'elle ait passées !
Mais pas avect celle-ci:
Ces chanteurs sont les pires que j'ai écoutés !
Je note l'explication qui suit:
Therefore, Le Mode Indicatif can only be used in such cases where the sentence refers to established true facts or statements.
I believe that “I arrived the day he left” refers to a non-specific timeframe and therefore should use the feminine form, but it was marked wrong on my test and the masculine “la jour” was said to be correct instead. Can someone explain to me why this would be the case, or if it’s an error?
I needed to Google ‘Roland Garros’ to find out that it was the name of what I’m sure most of us know as The French Open. I thought it must be a player so answered accordingly. Thank you for accepting my answer even though it was incorrect!
In “et je ne connais pas bien la ville.” it sounds like “bien a ville”. There is no hint of an “l” sound. At least to my ears. This might also be what Jean meant.
I don't have the best ears, but I do not hear beaucoup after t-shirt. I hear "au contre" instead.
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