French language Q&A Forum

Is it a rule that être + adjective is always followed by the preposition de? Or can it be followed by à sometimes?

Why is it not "doucemment" with a double "m"?

It's not clear to me when used on. I'd appreciate some guidance about the use of that pronoun.

Je suis confus.  pourquoi est-ce "la capitale de la France mais "le royaume de France.

Well, so it's true: You do learn something new every day! And for me, it's the expression, "Ouistiti" !

I had looked up "Say cheese", (in both Collins and the Larousse), and found only "Souriez" ! 

I wrote "Souriez", which was marked wrong. Maybe, I should have written, "Souris" ! the second person imperative, instead of the formal/plural imperative?

Even when I search 'ouistiti' I can only find that it means 'marmoset', ("un petit singe arboricole d'Amerique tropicale et aux fortes griffes") Also that the expression, "Un drole de ouistiti" means " a bit of a weirdo" ("une personne bizarre"). Does anyone know the origin of the expression, "Ouistiti"?

Merci a tous et bonne continuation !

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?