French language Q&A Forum

I would have expected 'un conte' to be a 'short story'. I was under the impression that 'Une nouvelle' tends to be a long short story. Thus 'Bel-Ami' is a 'roman', 'Boule de Suif' is a 'nouvelle' but 'Une Vendetta' is a 'conte'. What do you think/?

Hi Aurélie,

I notice a few people have asked the same question about the sentence - Tu lui as parlé' being translated as 'You talked to her' but parlé not agreeing with a feminine ‘lui’. You have said that the past participle doesn’t agree with an indirect object pronoun, and refer people to the advanced lesson: Special cases where the past participle agrees...  However that lesson only talks about direct object pronouns and doesn’t actually say that the past participle doesn’t agree with an indirect object pronouns. I wondered if - for completeness and clarity - you could add that to the lesson, if it is not covered elsewhere. Many thanks. 

In the B2 writing exercise, occurs the following phrase: le Ministère a finalement confirmé ce lundi for: the Ministry finally confirmed this Monday. 

 If ce is a demonstrative adjective, this construction seems incorrect. I translated it as le Ministère l'a confirmé lundi.

In the ceci/cela lesson, cela dit is translated as 'that said' though the verb is in the present tense. Is there a 'rule' for this or is it simply idiomatic?

Merci!

I came across this sentence in one of the quizes. It is translated as: "Je sens la transpiration"

How does it change if I mean to say "I smell sweat" like somebody else's sweat; not mine.

&Can you please clarify the meaning here? The translation,   Paula doesn’t think much of the environment, is a bit ambiguous (and awkward ounding).  In English this could mean (and one would more likely say) either “Paula doesn’t care much about the environment”, or “Paula doesn’t spend much time thinking about the environment.”  But of course they mean different things.  Which meaning applies here?

Mon text est en anglais.  Je veux le voir en français.  Comme je fais ça?  Merci