French language Q&A Forum

My French teacher just discussed that words such as Intelligent, imprimer, australien, fin.... All utilise a short "ang" nasal sound rather like what is used with the english word 'sang'. (The phonetic sound is identified with a symbol resembling epsilon with a squiggly over it- ɛ̃).  Listening to your recordings it sounds a lot like "ung" to me. Are both pronunciations OK? On Google it sounds like your usual recording (ung-), but on reverso it sounds just like 'ang-ɛ̃'. Clarification would be so welcome.

Consider...

1. "Paul should have left earlier."

As I understand it, both these sentences would be translated as "Paul aurait dû partir plus tôt", even though, in English, there is a difference in meaning. Is there a better way to translate #2 to convey the meaning that Paul was compelled to leave?

When I did my quiz, with 'Ben _______ son train presque tous les jours.', the answer box was a drop-down question. When I got my results, this question was Almost There. The answer showed two different answers! If a question is drop-down, you can't select two answers at once, can you?

Scratching my head as usual on this subject. This time concerning "et j'ai joué de moins en moins".  Since I was doing this (playing) less and less, surely that means I was continuing to do it in the past, if I'd only done it once as a completed action, I ipso facto couldn't have been doing it "less and less"!  - hence, I thought,  "Je jouais de moins en moins". Why is it Passé composé? (Will I EVER get my head round this particular issue: it's always the thing that trips me up!)

'When only very few rights were granted to women' is translated as 'où l'on n'octroyait que très peu de droits à la gente féminine'. But in the dictionary it seems to say that this noun is spelt 'gent' without the 'e'; while 'gente' is a form of the adjective meaning 'gentil'

Why cette année instead of cet an?  

The English translation of this ' By the time he's had his lunch, you can have a shower' is agreed by 50 of my fb friends to be ungrammatical and not something an english person would say. The wrong answer - the time it takes him to have lunch, you could have a shower, is much more what we would say, although we'd say 'In the time..'  and you might say'In the time it takes him to have lunch, you can have a shower' although could is better. Could someone please pay attention to this. It feels wrong consistently having to select a fake English answer.

In this example, why is the answer not sortir? 

Thank you

Je ________ de chez moi.

‘Moutaine’ is the word for ‘mitten’ on Google Translate. Why is ‘moufle’ the correct answer here?

I am bring this up because I am desperately trying to find a site where I can check my written French.  One I recently discovered https://bonpatron.com/  seemed promising at first.  

In a quiz question here on the lesson topic above, multiple choice, my answer was marked wrong:

#1 Nous sommes entrés sans que vous ne nous entendez. (wrong, and I now see why)

The correct answer was:

#2 Nous sommes entrés sans que vous nous entendiez.

I can understand why my answer is wrong, based on the lesson.  

I checked out all four sentences at Bon Patron including the last two

#3  Nous sommes entrés sans vous nous entendre.

#4 Nous sommes entrés sans vous nous entendiez.

For all four sentences, I was given a grammar score of 100% on Bon Patron.  

So I am thinking that Bon Patron is not at all helpful, unless there is some really obscure reason that the three wrong answers here might be acceptable under some obscure circumstance, which I doubt.

Writing in French (to express my own thoughts) is a real challenge for me.  At some point I have to go beyond set quizzes (and in no way is this meant as a criticism of Kwiziq) and use what I've learned here, so, for example, I can write correct French to French friend in France.

Anyone have any helpful ideas for me? 

Thank you, thank you, thank you, if you do !