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!
The question that led me here asked to fill in the proper tense of the verb ‘venir’ in this sentence: Il______heir. I wrote ‘Il est venu heir.’ The correction said the correct answer was Il sont venu. Wouldn’t the ‘sont’ tense be used instead for the third person plural (ils)?
… isn’t it?
Avoir besoin de. Avoir envie de. Devoir. I try guessing by picking one or two or three depending on the activity and invariably get it wrong. I think your explanatory text needs more clarification, especially in the use of avoir envie de as an option for ‘need to’. Thank you for your time.
The question asked for the correct version translated with despite not in spite but this is still labeled correct. I'm confused.
So I translated "un proffeseur" to be "a teacher" and it was incorrect, with it saying I should have translated "one teacher". The accompanying grammar lesson only has information on the indefinite article (which I was using). What's going on?
Bit of clarification please:-
- Isn't 'I pass by the new coffee shop' better translated by 'passe par' ? The exercise on Passer gives -Passer par / devant ... (to pass by / in front of...)
- does not 'J'aime' mean 'I love' and wouldn't 'J'aime bien 'I like' be better in this instance? (the excercise on Aimer says 'Note that when using aimer bien, it actually lessens its meaning from 'to love' to 'to like' [someone] / [something].'
This isn't really about the lesson per se, but two English-language books about DeGaulle: Julian Jackson "De Gaulle" & Jonathan Fenby "The General, Charles DeGaulle & the France He Saved" are fascinating character studies & well worth the read.
The man that Churchill once described to FDR as "our mutual headache", c'était vraiment un homme compliqué.
In “En 1253, le chapelain Robert de Sorbon fonde un collège pour élèves nécessiteux” I was surprised that it was not “les élèves” or “des élèves”. Is there a particular reason why this is the case?
The audio for the line sounds like >
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!
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