French language Q&A Forum

This appeared in my test. The question I have is not around the the subject pronoun, but about "ont de jolies poupées". Is this a rule regarding "avoir de"? So whatever object follows it, whether it's singular or plural you always use "de"?

Hi in this when he said the word diner, the audio gets cut. 

Is it a fault at recording. just wanted to point out. 

Alexandre is a proper noun, so shortening it to "qu'Alexandre" is optional and not necessary. Yet I got marked wrong for writing "n'a embrassé que Alexandre"

Hey everyone, 

I’m a novice when it comes to spoken French and the subtleties of the language but  I really want to do it justice when I reference it in my novel. The particular scene I need help with is a first person account of a French woman where she tells the reader about an occasion when was approached by English Gentleman (an official and very well educated) who was fluent French speaker, but not a native, and how she knew he wasn't French. I wanted to include details of how she

she might have missed initially if she wasn’t paying too much attention to him but as her guard was up already in the scene, she was able to spot the giveaways that others may have missed. 

Whether it be pronunciation, tense, inflection or something to do with the time etc. 

The English man in the scene approached the French woman when she’s at work in a post office and hands her a note. He tells her something along the lines of  ”I need this delivered by tomorrow morning, 9:30 at the latest. Tracked” with a French name and address on the envelope. I’m thinking something around the way he says the time could be interesting, but I’m not sure how it would work yet?

What are some subtle giveaways that native French speakers pick up with non native French speakers that indicate to them them that they’re not French?  (That aren’t so obvious.)

Any thoughts will be helpful. Thank you for your time🙏🏻

Why are we using "Fantaisie" and not "fantasme or fantastique" - as it my research shows "fantaisie" is to do with the music?

Next is why is it "Magie" and not "magique"? As my research shows that magie is to do with magic tricks whereas "magique" is to do with something amazing (i.e the film)

Next why is "S'assurer que" followed by the subjunctive "soit"? I've looked up this phrase and it says it's always followed by the indicative? 

In the sentence below the verb emmener is used, however doesn't that give the impression that her mother stayed with her daughter to watch the film? Whereas the english text says that she watched the film with her best friend. Given the context and thinking retrospectively, I guess her mother would have stayed with her to watch it, but it's a little ambiguous (she could have just dropped her off at the cinema).

I used amener instead of emmener, but that wasn't given as an option.

j'avais dû casser les pieds à ma mère pendant des semaines pour qu'elle m'emmène voir "Amélie" avec ma meilleure amie Lola.

Nick

Now, l just have to read Les Fleurs du Mal. So inspiring. The bohemian in me recognizes that in Baudelaire. 

As we encounter these amazing writers, it strikes me that it would be useful to learn the use of the passé simple and the passé antérieur and possibly other now more literary tenses in the subjonctif.  I realize that most people don't speak that way anymore. Yet l wonder, if l were to read Baudelaire, might l  not encounter those tenses? 

Another current example: l listen to France Inter. They recently aired a fabulous 8 part podcast on Simone de Beauvoir. So l am now reading Mémoires d'une jeune fille rangée, which is liberally sprinkled with the Passé simple and Passé antérieur. So no sweat, l figure it out; the vocabulary she uses is actually more challenging than her tenses. So here is a woman writing in 1958 who is very current today in fact, when it comes to feminism, she is still central source material. Thanks for considering this suggestion.

PS: The funniest thing! After first writing this l  took a study plan test in which 4 out of 10 questions required the passé simple! So my information that you do not teach such tenses is clearly wrong ... or out-dated. Please feel free to not respond to my suggestion if my basic assumptions are wrong 😀

This appeared in a test question on Laura's site.

(If I was rich, I could travel a lot.).

Is this grammatically correct? No!

Shame!!!

Sorry but I don't have accents. Why is it "ressemblent a des ecailles" and not "aux ecailles"?

Hi,

Internet was slow, it took ages for posts to register. At least one of my entries did not register at all. I made only one mistake, 'auparavant" which l spelled with an e (auparavent). Some punctuation challenges. So, l had rated myself  59 out of 60, not 49 out of 60. How do l fix this?