French language Q&A Forum

Following on from my question about queue and line.. if I recognise the problem and simply do not answer the question.. it keeps coming up time and again as the first question in a Kwiz.. am thinking it would be easy enough to create a rule that if somebody did not answer a question three times in a row it was highly likely that they were ignoring the question and Kwizbot should stop asking it.. at least for a week.

More on in line.. accepted that Americans call a queue a line but in ordinary English, standing in a line is a common enough thing to do without being anywhere near a queue so maybe need to accept en ligne as well.

In the lesson where you have the example to hand, there is a clue but not in general Kwizes.

Might it be worth expanding on the current  form in the lesson itself?

Bonjour,

The online Collins dictionary gives the translation of 'être inconnu(e) à qn' meaning to be unknown to someone, which I used in the response. The correction provided for 'inconnues de' and this was confirmed by my big Collins Robert dictionary. Could anyone shed some light on the difference between à or de in this context please?

Merci beaucoup :-) 

Hi,

In the last sentence we had to translate "I don't think there will be a problem". 

I know that with "Je ne pense pas" we use subjonctif but since the sentence was in the future tense I translated it to "Je ne pense pas qu'il y aura de problème" but the correct answer was "Je ne pense pas qu'il y ait de problème". Doesn't this actually translate to "I don't think there is a problem" rather than "there will be a problem" ? How do we convey the future tense part of it?

Thanks and regards

Roopa

1. On dit pas "une longue barbe frisee" ici, mais "une barbe longue et frisee".  'long/longue" devant  le nom = "Ouah!" comme "Quelle longue journee!".

Peut-etre s'il avait une barbe qui lui pendait jusqu' a` la poitrine, on pourrait dire: "Ouah! Quelle longue barbe!, mais ce monsieur a une barbe normale.

En plus, son pull n'est pas du tout "violet".

2.  On ne leur voit pas les yeux.

3.  En gros, il faut redessiner les portraits 

I just took a test on this subject.  What makes no sense to me is that all the test answers use the word must ( must have been, gone, lost, etc.)  Since one uses the future of avoir or être and the passé comp ending, wouldn't the proper translation be will have been, etc?  When I go to a lesson, not one example sentence uses the word must.  Furthermore, wouldn't common sense tell you that devoir should be used somehow if must is desired? Help-frustrated.

Bonjour à tous et à toutes

Est-ce que quelqu'un peut me dire quelle est la différence entre les deux phrases suivantes svp:

Martin aime bien Sarah

Sarah plaît à Martin

I'm sure there must be some subtle difference!

Merci,

Nick

The English text 'she lay daydreaming for hours' is translated 'elle restait allongée à rêvasser pendant des heures'.

Does this use of an 'à + infinitive' construction imply some element of purpose (she lay down to daydream) or can it really be used simply to imply simultaneous activity? For example, could you say 'je fait le repassage à écouter la radio...'?

Marie chante ________ Eric. Marie sings as well as Eric.I put aussi bien que Éric.. The required answer aussi bien qu'Eric. ..thought here was an exception here for proper names?