French language Q&A Forum

Is there any difference between "il a fait exprès de casser ma poupée" and "il a cassé ma poupée exprès"?

I've only ever encountered the latter before, and it seems more straightforward to not have the extra verb floating around, but perhaps there's a subtle difference that I'm missing?

Quelle est la différence d'utilisation entre les magasins, les commerces et les boutiques ? Est-ce une question de taille, de spécialisation, etc. ?

I get that "magasin" is generally a retail outlet & "commerce" is more for small business, but I've seen them used interchangeably. In the States "boutique" is usually for high-end or very niche-oriented items, but that doesn't always seem to track en français.

When referring to a single person of unknown gender, is it correct to use le/la leur, or is that a situation where theirs should be translated as le sien/la sienne?

E.g Would "Someone has forgotten their wallet.  Don't take it!  It's theirs." translate to "Quelqu'un a oublié leur portefeuille.  Ne le prends pas!  C'est le leur."  ou "Quelqu'un a oublié son portefeuille.  Ne le prends pas!  C'est le sien." 

I would think that this would follow the rule of feminine place names getting en, but I keep hearing people say « dans la Nouvelle-Écosse » instead of « en Nouvelle-Écosse » like I would expect

Okay, don't laugh, but why would chercher take a direct object pronoun? For example, why is it "il les cherche" and not "il leur cherche".

Merci !

I would be grateful for a clarification of the following:

In a sentence such as: Frank writes fast but Olivier writes as fast as him. "Frank écrit vite mais Olivier écrit ________ lui": why do we use the adjectival "aussi vite que "instead of the adverb "autant vite que"?  

Hi, I just came across this on a test and I wrote that it could mean Jack descended on the giant (as opposed to the stairs ) and this was marked incorrect but in the explanation it states that they descended the stairs requires avoir as the auxillary verb so I cannot see why descending on the giant is any different? They both have a direct object.

I am a bit confused about this. Thanks

I notice in the example, Martine walks "jusque chez Julien". More often you see jusqu’à (or au, à la etc). Is à omitted here because "chez" is already a preposition, as well as denoting Julien’s house?

Pourquoi manque-t-il l’article au nom de Haïti ?