French language Q&A Forum

I spent a good couple of minutes trying to figure out what she was saying in the middle. I ended up submitting "Il fait trop chaud bon sauce bolognaise!" "Pour une" obviously makes more sense, but did anyone else have trouble making out those two words? It certainly sounded like "bon" to me.

Using le gerondif seems simpler that using a more complex construction using qui. For instance: 

People don't eat the produce coming from farmers using pesticides. (Les gens ne mangent pas les produits des agriculteurs utilisant des pesticides)

People don't eat the produce coming from farmers that use pesticides. (Les gens ne mangent pas les produits des agriculteurs qui utilisent des pesticides)

Is there a preference? 

The question, "We come from Texas=Nous venons du Texas. How do I know which counties or regions or states are masculine. For example: We come from 'Alabama'. Is this masculine or feminine?

Merci!

John

I adore the construction with the "ne" expletif but is it used in "la langue quotidienne"?

In the statement "mon fils a de grandes oreilles" , why is it not "DES grandes oreilles"? Ears is plural, and "de" is the article, and "grand" is following a feminine plural suit.... I've noticed this with other items, mostly body parts, like toes, fingers, eyes. They all use a plural article "les" but when describing them, it turns to "de"

If I said "he had cats" it would be "il a des chats", right? What am I not getting!?

Because of the 'hint' that 'the action was completed' I changed my initial answer from 'Ce Noel etait' to 'Ce Noel a ete' - but I find it's 'etait' in the above version.

I also had used the word 'etincelantes' but this was scored out and replaced with 'brillantes'.  

This is by no means the first time that similar things have happened and I'm a bit peeved that I've had to mark myself down needlessly.

It may just be me but the lesson on Tout is a good example of what I find confusing about some (otherwise crisp and excellent) Kwiziq lessons: it’s not always clear what the green rule is referring to. Sometimes it comes before the examples, sometimes after (eg tout + adverb here). Sometimes it flips multiple times in the same lesson. It may be better to connect the red and green lines so they form a bracket around each formalism. I get that would require quit a lot of editing of existing lessons. Perhaps we could crowdsource that if you open the platform. 

Hi, in La Maison de Cendrillon the correction sais: Au rez-de chaussée, 1 hyphen?

this is not in conditionnel 

But this is:

Au cas où vous auriez faim, je vous ai fait un sandwich.

I have not seen this one addressed elsewhere, so I will post it and see if there is any advice. In all the exercises so far, "près de" is used. I am in Quebec and have been using "proche de", which seems to be commonly used.

So - the question: is there some subtle differences in the use of "près" or "proche" which I should learn?