French language Q&A Forum

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.

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 !

Je lirai jusqu'à ce que je sois trop fatiguée. Why is fatiguee feminine. Do you know something about the reader that we don't, or am i missing something?

D'abord, ils ont pris des feuilles de papier rouge, orange et jaune,

I'm struggling to see why rouge and jaune are singular. 

I know it is correct, for example : des feuilles de papier blanc = white sheets of paper.

Can anyone explain with a simple rule?

I think basically the point is the colours agree with the material, (papier= unaccountable, singular noun in this context), not with the "sheets".

Is there a general rule I can apply , perhaps about en/de + a material ?

I'm guessing it's something like this:

When describing what an object is made of, it is always treated as a singular noun ?

Thanks, Paul.