French language Q&A Forum

I am aware that this has been discussed before but it is clear to me that in certain cases “passer une année” can be used.

For example, on the web page https://acupoffrench.com/french-grammar/an-vs-annee-2/, which also explains when to use “an” or “année”, there is the following example with passer and année used to stress the duration:

“Elle a passé quatre années à chercher un travail.”

So I think it would not hurt to explicitly mention this possibility to use année instead of an to stress the duration. 

For the general case (not just related to passer), I think the rule from “Advanced French Grammar”/Monique L’Huillier section 5.2.1 an/année is clearer than the “time unit” vs “duration” distinction: “an usually follows cardinal numbers, whilst année follows ordinal numbers, or an indefinite or demonstrative adjective”.

This rule does not hold for jour/journée, soir/soirée and matin/matinée and these cases  are treated separately in the book.

This rule is then followed up in the book with “If the year is modified in any way, “année” should be used” with the following examples.

“J’ai vécu à Londres pendant cinq ans.”

”J’ai gardé un très bon souvenir de mes cinq années à Londres.”

Wait! Don’t go to bed yet!

If the first part of the question is stated in second person plural, why is ‘ne te couche pas’ right and ‘ne vous couchez pas’ wrong?

Referring to “vous adorerez cette autre idée : modifier un pyjama en flannelle défraîchi.”

for

“you will love this other idea: making alterations to a pair of faded flannel pyjamas.”

I can only find “flanelle” (one “n”, not two) in the dictionaries. And this is a female noun. So should these answers all be “…en flanelle défraîchie.”?

when we say the more X, the more Y...we dont need le or la? to indicate "the" like "the more i run, the more i am happy" 

Hello, please can you explain why the computer gave the correct answer as étiez for the sentence:

Emile et toi étiez toujours poli.?   I am confused as I thought the iez ending was only used with vous. 

I would like to particularly congratulate the person who gave us this piece.  Not only was it enlightening for me, but it was also a perfect B2 listening exercise. Thank you.  Now to my question.  I understand the admonition about the use of present tense to relate a historical story.  How does the use of the future perfect in the first paragraph relate to this?  Were there other choices for this tense?

The suggested translation of 'will justify much better' is 'justifiera bien mieux'; and if you try 'justifiera beaucoup mieux' it is marked wrong. I had thought either would be fine here?

Hello,

I don't see any mention of how to conjugate verbs with these pronouns? Do you always assume they are singular + masculin ? Or are there any special cases (I can't think of one so I'm asking in case somebody knows)?

Thank you.

I can’t figure out when to make cent plural when writing dates. I see it is plural in 1900 but not in most other dates. 

I’ve seen this example a that doesn’t t follow the rule:. Elle pense à sa famille … Elle y pense