French language Q&A Forum

Write "Bob is woken up by the alarm clock every day." : Bob ________ le réveil tous les jours.

The correct answer is "Bob est réveillé par le réveil tous les jours.

I get that the alarm clock is the subject, that Bob is the object, so the sentence is in the passive voice. What confuses me is "est réveillé." What tense is that? Since it is habitual, I think of l'imparfait ("réveillait"). Then "est reveillé" seems like passé composé, with an auxilliare followed by the participe passé, but avoir is the auxilliare for réveiller, not être. Word Reference shows reveillé as an adjective, but it seems like a verb as it is used in this sentence.

I'm sure as soon as I hit "Ask Question" the answer will be blindingly obvious to me, but in case that doesn't happen, could someone clear this up? Thanks!

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I'm wondering why the verb tense here doesn't match the English sentence that was given : "We **had wanted** you so much for so long... ".

Is "baies rouges" acceptable or only "fruits rouges"? And does "fruits rouges" mean a specific type of berry, or can it be e.g. redcurrants, cranberries etc?

I was not aware that se dépêcher can often be followed by the preposition "de". 

So could I say:  "Je me dépêche d'y arriver à l'heure"?

Thank you for your wonderful website.  Adelaida. 

I struck a problem with moitie/demi- not a problem with French, but with the English sentence in the exercise. If an English speaker says "I ate half a chicken", it is not possible for an English-speaking person to be certain what the English speaker means. It could mean EITHER he consumed 50% of a chicken OR that he bought half a chicken and ate it all. My point is, that one cannot divine the English speaker's meaning without more information. It follows, in this case, that a test question that demands a choice made between moitie or demi cannot be incorrect. Here, I think, the subtlety (or the casualness) of English speech has not been understood.

Is the “ en  train de finir” construct also accepted for the question: “Louis is finishing his homework”?

This is probably British slang for spend extravagantly.  I have never heard this used in the U. S.

How can you tell that the qu'  in "Qu'aimez-vous?" means que rather than qui?  I.e., why isn't it "who do you like?" instead of "what do you like?"