French language Q&A Forum

When I took French in school I remember there being a confusion with leur and leurs around sentences such as "the men went to their cars" where there was a difference between each man going to his own individual car versus the cars being collectively owned by the group of men.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Or is it just "les hommes sont allés à leurs voitures" for both?

lists all lessons connectes to piece but no vocab

1. J'arriverai avant qu'ils n'aient mangé.

2. Nous voulons que tu aies rangé ta chambre avant ce soir.

3. J'ai attendu qu'il soit monté dans le train pour partir

I use Avoir when Transitive as is #2 but why avoir in #1 which is intransitive as is #3.

This is the most confusing subject I have encountered so far. Please explain.

if show me your hands is tes , why isn't it ta main for raise your hand/

Thanks for helping

I am making a lot of incorrect punctuation choices.   It seems that there are significant differences in punctuation conventions between English and French.   Do you address these?   

Are "les gens" and "les personnes" interchangeable, or does "les gens" mean "people in general" and "les personnes" mean "people, considered as individuals"? (This is the fun, and puzzling, part of learning a language - understanding nuances.)

This is very confusing.  I have gotten it wrong in quizzes twice because I used a singular verb with the "plural" noun as in Mes vacances coûte.....please explain why I should use a plural verb? In the lesson all the examples show a plural noun (French style) with a singular verb. And, in the examples there are only singular verbs with the plural nouns.  

I'm still somehow confused on when to use des vs. les. For example, in the translation exercises,

"and boys can play with dolls" is translated to "et les garçons peuvent jouer avec des poupées".

But I thought it should be LES poupées because it's referring to dolls (in general). Is this a case of either one working?