French language Q&A Forum

Why do i not use l'imperfait in this sentence. Its a habit? So i use the imperfait?

In this article, it says that when talking about specific things we should use il/elle.

Yet in the example, we see a sentence that says:

   C'est le fils de Martha

Wouldn't we have to use il est instead of c'est here ? Just how many kids does Martha have that we have to use a generalizing statement like c'est instead ?

When I look up "failli" in Google translate, it has "bankrupt." Yet the words "failli sursauter" translate as "almost startled" (comme "presque sursauter).

So it kind of means "You failed to be startled"? (Failli faire, mais no?) Wow... that's a stretch.

Is the meaning of "presque" (almost) slightly different then? 

My immediate instinct was to use "Attention ! Le mélange ne devrait pas trop chaud," but it was marked incorrect. In this particular context, is there a hard reason why it is better to use "Le mélange ne doit pas être trop chaud" instead? 

Why is "rapports" plural in the first sentence?

Also, in the second sentence, why is there no article before "amis" ("On était amis"), but in another sentence, there is an article ("qu'on soit plus que des amis")?

Hi,

I wonder how I should use "pas ... non plus" when there's an auxiliary verb as well.

Thank you in advance.

So, is there a nuance between 'buisson' and 'arbuste' ?  I believe that both translate to bush or shrub.  Shouldn't both be accepted since there is no other description? 

This sentence has a question mark, but it got marked as wrong. In the text above, the sentence ends with a period. 

the dog owners who don't pick up their excrement?

At a minimum, it seems like there should be a conjunction or a que to better structure the sentence.

Anyway, can someone translate/explain this sentence?

As near as I can tell, no transitive usage of DESCENDRE is followed by a preposition, and whenever descendre does take a preposition, it's an intransitive verb. This doesn't tell which of the many meanings of DESCENDRE obtain, but it does seem a reasonable heuristic device. Your thoughts....?