Q&A Forum

I didn’t have a clue what the colloquial for “The only fly in the ointment” was, so I had a wee search online and one suggestion was “Un seul cheval dans la soupe”, which made me laugh so I used that. I know you marked me wrong in favour of “La seule ombre au tableau”, but can the used ?

Bonjour Madame Cécile !

Two sentences are given as->

1.Quand vous voyagerez en France, vous serez très occupé.

When you travel to France, you'll be very busy.

2.Quand ils arriveront, tu iras les accueillir. 

When they arrive, you will go and welcome them.

Here, I would like to raise a question as to why one cannot use Le Futur Antérieur in the clauses after Quand in the two sentences mentioned above. Why are both the clauses using Le Futur Simple ?

One action precedes the other in the future so why not Le Futur Antérieur ?

What does Le Futur Simple in both the clauses signify ?

Merci encore ! 

Bonne Fête Nationale Française !

I'm also looking forward to an answer to Ted's question below. In addition, the lesson contains the heading 

  If in Exer the x stands for any other letter, that would include eler and eter, so why does the heading expressly state them?

Quelle est la différence entre “Je vais” et “Je m’en vais”?

Je suis une sage-femme, je rencontre mes clients à la réception et ensuite nous allons dans la salle d’examen, est-ce que je pourrais dire " allons-y" ? 

If he lives in a magnificent palace, why is the translation not 'magnifique palais' as opposed to the "correct" version 'magnifique château'? I suppose it's because it's "Le Château de Versailles"… but when is it appropriate to use "palais" literally?

Partout cette lécon on utilise le pronon "on". C'est pourquoi j'ai écrit: Mes amis et moi, on préfère rester chez moi...????

I'm not sure this is directly relevant to this topic but I can't think of a better place to ask the question!

The answer to a question relating to this lesson is "Je vais me faufiler sans qu'il s'en aperçoive." What is the function of "en" in the sentence (and the rule pertaining to its use)? I assume it intends to refer back to the previously mentioned sneaking, but I can't figure out the rule. I know that "en" can be used to refer to previously mentioned phrases starting with "de", but that doesn't seem to fit here.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

L’imparfait - what a minefield ! It’s not a question, but i’ve found that when it’s used to express habits or repeated actions more sense is made in the English when ‘would’ is used over ‘used to’ - which indeed you’ve noted in your lesson. This has helped me understand its use in French.

So a sentence like “Je lisais tous les jours” could be translated as “I would / used to read every day”