French language Q&A Forum

Why "fin janvier" but not "a la fin de janvier"

Après avoir dû oublier l’habitude anglaise d’utiliser des majuscules pour les nationalités - ce qui est parfois un vrai lutte ! - il semble pervers de les trouver soudainement nécessaires dans cet exercice ! Est-ce qu'il y a une règle pour utiliser les majuscules quand la nationalité fait partie d'un nom d'équipe ?

In one quiz, a sentence reads  J'étais comme votre fils, jusqu'à ce qu'un jour, j'aille dans la bibliothèque de mon quartier,et que je me mette à dévorer les romans “Donjons & Dragons”. I filled the blanks correctly because the tips said to use the subjunctive, but I don't understand why the subjunctive is used here. "I was like your son until one day I went to the library ...", something that definitely happened in the past, so I would have written "je suis allé dans la bibliothèque ... et je me suis mis à dévorer ..." I'm also surprised by the second "que" before "je me mette". Can you give me some insight?

The lesson says:

Conjugations of APPARAÎTRE (to appear) in Le Passé

Composé (Indicatif) in French

j'/je

 suis apparu(e)

tu

 es apparu(e)

il / elle / on

 est apparu(e)(s)

nous

 sommes apparu(e)s

Why "comment s'est passé ton séjour en Alsace en famille " And NOT "comment est-ce que ton séjour en Alsace en famille s'est passé"

Please explain

Good morning. Is there a trick to hearing the accents over vowels, or do you just have to know where they are in every word? A lot of times I can distinguish the pronunciation of é vs. è, but sometimes I can't tell the difference between e and é, for example. In the text, there's the sentence "" where I can hear é in représentation and théâtrales, but the e in spectacles sounds the same as é in the other two words and doesn't have an accent. Is this something that just comes with a lot of practice? Or do you just sort of need to know the words in advance? 

As English being  my mother tongue, I believe the word fertile should be futile!

The very first example given of when to use "c'est" is:

"C'est une jolie robe."

This clearly refers to a specific dress.

But then we are told that the answer to "Tu aimes mon pull?"  should be "Oui, il est très beau."

Why is the rule for a specifc dress different than the rule for a specific sweater? Is it that "il/elle est" should be used when answering a question about a specific thing but that "c'est" can be used otherwise?