French language Q&A Forum

Pourquoi est-ce qu'on ne peux pas dire "C'est quoi qui" au lieu de "Qu'est-ce qui"?

I find the questions which ask things like "If I say "Tu es français.", who am I speaking to: Lucie or Hugo?" quite frustrating, because the gendering of names isn't fixed.  According to https://madame.lefigaro.fr/prenoms/prenom/garcon/lucie, Lucie, whilst predominantely feminine, has been a mixed name for over a century. 

On a quiz, the question was "Il est_________ (It's ten past three o'clock)(Hint use the 12 hour clock) " I wrote Il est quinze heures dix. The only accepted answer was "Il est trois heures dix". There was no indication that it was supposed to be AM. Can you please either arrange to have it accept both AM and PM or at least indicate that you specifically needed AM or PM in the question.

Thank you!

It pulled me up (incorrectly) on my spelling of oignons with ognons.

I'm curious about why we say "Je lui parle", but "Je pense à lui.  Can we say, "Je parle à lui" and Je lui pense"? Why does "parler" use an indirect object pronoun and "penser" use a stress pronoun? What is the reasoning behind this? Is it something to do with the meaning of the verbs, or is there no logic to it?

How would you say « whom do you miss »?

Is there any difference in meaning/nuance/register between

'Ce magasin est fermé de deux heures à deux heures et demi'

and

'Ce magasin est fermé entre deux heures et deux heures et demi'? 

I think I tend to use the latter more often, and I'm now wondering whether it's incorrect, or makes me sound odd.

Can I just check the spelling of the second "apparus" in Céline’s reply to Jenny-Anne? 

She says "The correct answer was -  Both sentences are correct 

as you can say  Puis, nous sommes apparus and Puis nous avons apparus"

Like chris w I find this one difficult every time it comes round, due to the English translations given - 

1. the English "certain" can carry either of the two meanings described here

2. "particular" also has several meanings, but it’s usually specific and not at all vague.  Perhaps some more examples would help?

In the phrase, "Bonjour Lucile, nous assistons en direct à un début de course palpitant...", 'palpitant' seems to agree with 'début' instead of 'course'.  I would think that the course is thrilling rather than its début.  Is it because le début de course is a compound noun and, if so, the agreement would always be with the principle part, in this case début ?