French language Q&A Forum

Bonjour à tous, 

I've come access this sentence somewhere using "être on train de" in Conditionnel passé tense:

I would have been skying in the Alps if I hadn’t broken my leg.

Je serais en train de skier dans les Alpes si je ne m’étais pas cassé la

jambe.

I think we must use avoir (in Conditionnel présent) + être (in past participle) as follow:

J'aurais été en train de skier....

Could you explain which one is correct?

Merci beaucoup d'avance.

I can hardly hear the "ne" in this sentence.

Is the "ne" sound sometimes dropped in real spoken French?

Why is it « nouvel » and not « neuf » when the raincoat would be brand new from the store? I thought neuf is for new, never been used, and nouvel is for been used but still pretty new.

Why was this marked incorrect for "I am five minutes late" ?   According to the lecture, can use either "Je suis en retard"  (de 5 minutes) or  "J'ai (5 minutes) de retard"   

What is the difference in meaning between l'article partitif (du, des) and l'article contracte (du, des)?

On the ainsi que lesson there is the following section:

ATTENTION:

Ok, we know that: '' Partitive articles, du, de la, & de l' (some/any) are used with mass nouns. Definite articles (le, la, l', les) and indefinite articles (un/une/des) are used with countable nouns.

Then what partitive ''des'' is used for? What is the difference between those two ''des''? The indefinite ''des'' vs the partitive ''des''. Are not there any uncountable nouns that have any plural form or something like that?

Chanson douce = lullaby :-)