French language Q&A Forum

"Moins le quart" is hardly perceptible.

Hi, if I was to say ‘I have been learning French since I was in school’, would I say: ‘J’apprends français depuis j’étais à l’école’ or ‘j’apprends français depuis je suis à l’école’? I am no longer in school so I’m thinking it may be the former however I’m not sure if the whole sentence needs to be in the present tense. Thanks 

This phrasing is not how a native English speaker would say this. I think “ Nantes was France’s best city for cycling” would be clearer. As is, it sounds like the city rides bikes.

I'm curious about why we say "Je lui parle", but "Je pense à lui.  Can we say, "Je parle à lui" and Je lui pense"? Why does "parler" use an indirect object pronoun and "penser" use a stress pronoun? What is the reasoning behind this? Is it something to do with the meaning of the verbs, or is there no logic to it?

Le temps

But

La mi-temps ?

Please confirm

Pourquoi pas "une cocarde bleue  et rouge"...... ?

This question was asked in a previous quiz, and the answer was you cannot tell the gender of the ‘“amie”. I understand that the ending e makes it a female friend, but if the question is verbalized, that is not available information. In the quiz I just took, the answer is ‘a woman’. I am confused as to how to answer this question in future quizzes, as two different answers have been given.

Hello,

Is there is a reason why some words require a 'consolidated' partitive with the definite article (du / de la) and some only require the 'unconsolidated' partitive (de)? Such as "je bois du vin' vs. nous buvons 2 litres d'eau par jour'?

I am trying to come up with a little rule to make things easier to learn / remember, but it doesn't seem that it works like that.

Thanks,

Alex