French language Q&A Forum

Alors, pourquoi utilise-on "avoir" au lieu de "être" avec courir, qui est un verb de mouvement?

Translated as: "Out of all the lies you told, none is believable."

Is this French example used simply to illustrate French grammar?

Because as a statement of logic, the statement is nonsense.  The second half of the statement is superfluous. Lies are ipso facto not credible (that is the nature of a lie). So of course 100% of the time they are not credible.

As an analogy, no one would say: "Out of all the green marbles you gave me, none is orange."

If instead you said: "Out of all the statements you told, none is believable" (or correct in French: "De tous les choses que tu as dit, aucun n'est crédible"?) or "Out of all the marbles you gave me, none is orange", these full sentences have logical meaning.

In the example:

Il faut qu'ils aient leur permis de conduire.
They must get their driving licence.

Avoir us used here similarly to "avoir un exam". Here it means they must 'obtain' their driver's license.

But how would you say: "They must have their driver's license (with them)"?

Context might be one way, but if 'they' was ambiguous, the imperative sentence would be ambiguous.