French language Q&A Forum

why can't I say c'etais la coup de foudre instead of c'a ete?

Hi, Kwiziq tells me "Le garçon rentre, les vêtements sales" = "The boy comes in, his clothes are dirty".

How would one say "The boy comes in, the clothes are dirty"? (For example, I imagine there are clothes lying around which, when the boy comes in, get stepped all over and made dirty.)

Can you say

Ma soeur a un bebe neuf

meaning a brand new baby?

What preposition should we use for:

1) city

2)country

If there are any exception pls mention them.

What would the difference in meaning be if you just said 'Avant d'avoir leurs nouvelles'?

I've noticed a few examples of this in previous reading exercises where the present tense is used to describe the past. Ex "En France c'est Napoléon..." rather than, "En France, c'etait Napoléon...", even in the translation when you click on it translates that phrase in the present as 'In France it was Napoleon'. I can see that the following phrase uses the passé composé so I'm just not quite clear why those two phrases don't have to agree in their tenses? 

Thanks :)

I was just going through the listening practice liked to below. The first sentence is:

Les soldes d'hiver de cette année se sont révélée.

And the word soldes doesn't sound right to me. Is it just me?

https://french.kwiziq.com/my-languages/french/exercises/overview/408

Please how do you use n'aime..

" ce pull ne va pas du tout. je le retourne tout de suite"

I thought retourner shouldnt be used in the context of returning something to the shop,,, I hear " Retourner never means to return (something) in the context of a shop for example. In French, we use rapporter (to bring back) or échanger [quelque chose]  can you say je le rentre? and or je le rapporte"? , 

Someone mentioned "I don't think retourner means to return in English like returning an item to a store (render quelque chose au magasin pour un remboursement) or putting an item away. is it the same for returning an item anywhere else than a shop like say a library? 

Another mentioned 99% of the time retourner isn't used to say you returned something in general. So is: "J'ai rendu les livres a la bibliotheque"  & j'ai rapporte les livres a la bibliotheque more preferred than j'ai retourne les livres a la bibliotheque. is it just the matter of choosing what sounds better in this case? even though you could possibly use retourner

& what is the difference between s'en retourner and retourner