French language Q&A Forum

The English translation "I'm washing after you got up" is grammatically incorrect. You're essentially saying "I'm doing this after you did that", which makes no sense in English. The proper structure would be "I'm washing after you get up" (I'm doing this after you do that") or "I'm washing after you have gotten up" ("I'm doing this after you have done that").

This is one of the most frustrating things in studying any language, when you see a direct translation given that you know is grammatically incorrect (even if it is understandable by somebody who's fluent in the language that the sentence is being translated into) instead of a transliteration that makes more sense.

The lesson doesn't say if it's okay to replace the pronouns un & autre with subject nouns. E.g  for: 'Neither Julien nor Sophie can come.' can you say 1) 'Ni Julien ni Sophie ne peuvent venir.' ? or do you have to say 2)'Julien et Sophie ne peuvent venir, ni l'un ni l'autre'  or how about 3) 'Ils ne peuvent venir, ni Julien ni Sophie.' ? Or are all three okay?

I think there is a mistake made regarding  'ces 'which is translated as those and not these.

One of the quizzes has a sentence:  La Castafiore faints (s'évanouir) all the time.

This question is totally unrelated to reflexive verbs, but I can't figure out what La Castafiore is.  Can you give a little history on this noun, please?  I enjoy picking up a little non-grammar knowledge from time to time.  Thanks.

Is "Il faut payer ..." a possibility here?

quick question: in French you say "ce sont NOS livres". Why is le pluriel of "le nôtre", written as "les nôtres" in this lesson?!

the 4 min video with Jennifer states "Use il est with an adjective".

It completley ignores the other 50% of the rule, when you use C'est with an adjective

Why does one say "j'ai arrêté de parler" and not "je me suis arrêté de parler"? 

arrêter is a transitive verb and thus to my understanding takes an object but the verb parler can not be an object in the example above. So how do I know what one to use.

I understand "des escargots"  but then why is it "les vins" ?  He tasted [some] snails... we drank [all the] wine?