French language Q&A Forum

Hi, in the alternate possibility that is given, “lorsque l'on termine une tour.” is the “ l’ ” there purely for pronunciation reasons? And could we use “lorsqu’on”? I remember something about it being desirable to avoid the sound of the French word “con”. Do friends in casual conversation care about that, or it just something to bear in mind in polite company?

Why is it the Canal du Midi and not the Canal de Midi, given that Midi describes the Canal and not the Midi is possessive of the Canal.   

Asked to translate, “ In the evening before a test “, I wrote, “La veille d’une épreuve” which was considered incorrect. The answer given was, “Le soir avant un exam”. Why was my answer wrong especially as “exam” does not feature in Harrap’s Shorter French And English Dictionary or Le Robert de poche. Test is translated as épreuve and examination is translated as examen. In a school context tests and examinations are different the former being of less importance.

So, formally, il faut ranger ta chambre can also be written as il te faut ranger la/ta chambre, right?

Le soir, la ville se réveillée.

Le soir, la ville se réveillait.

This is in the context of a visit to this city, which came alive in the evening. Until then the shops were closed and the streets empty. The text book answer was NOT in the imparfait. What is the rationale applied here?

I just opened a french novel and the first line is: "Il ne faut pas que l'on nous voie." I searched for negative statements like this on Lawless and found the example here: "Il ne faut pas que nous mangions avec les doigts." So I guess putting the 'ne . . . pas' round 'faut' is correct. It seems strange to me as an Anglophone. If I were making this up, I guess I would say: "Il faut que nous ne mangions pas avec les doigts." Is that incorrect? 

My translate app keeps correcting un évènement to un événement. I used the latter in this exercise and the result was that my answer matched, when it did not. Please explain which is correct. Thank you.

In the French translation of 'After engineers have finally perfected driverless cars' no word is given for 'finally' (eg. 'Après que les ingénieurs auront perfectionné les voitures sans chauffeur').