French language Q&A Forum

Please advice which is correct and why?

- Les personnes des nationalites differents

or

- Les personnes de nationalites differents

Hi,

I am under the impression that when conjugating a verb in the passé composé, the past participle will agree in the following instances:

When using avoir with a preceding direct object and using être and s'être. However, I have recently seen instances of conjugations of être/s'être not having any agreement.

Could anyone please tell me why this is? 

For example, why is the following sentence correct?

Les conférenciers s'étaient juré de nous renseigner sur l'histoire. 

Le genre s'était enrichi grâce à Ray Bradbury et à plusieurs auteurs qui se sont succédé tels que Stephen King et J.G Ballard. 

I would appreciate any responses,

Thanks!

Rebecca :) 

je dois apprendre le français=I should learn french
what is the difference between those sentences? 

in the quiz, you say " qu'est-ce que c'est QUE Sacré Coeur."

In the lesson, you say "qu'est-ce que c'est un stylo." 

Is the third "que" optional?

For the last sentence "je les ai vus descendre de leur voiture", I wanted to say "je les ai vus en descendant". Would my version basically mean "I saw them while I was getting out of the car"? Or can you use en descendant to refer to the aunt and uncle in this case? Thanks in advance. 

in the exercise there's a word  used "sûrement" as "probably", 

however here it says it means "certainly":

http://dictionnaire.sensagent.leparisien.fr/SUREMENT/fr-fr/

and here seems to be meaning both:

https://context.reverso.net/translation/french-english/s%C3%BBrement?utm_source=reversoweb&utm_medium=contextresults&utm_campaign=resultpage

If I have a bad knee it implies that the knee is hurting, so it means the same as my knee hurts. The pain does not have to be chronic and may be caused by a graze or a slight strain. So why is "I have a bad knee " considered incorrect ?

I am being distracted trying to understand the underlining in a number of examples above (and probably shouldn't be, I know). Can't help but feel I am missing the significance - which I am if there is some!  The underlining doesn't coincide with le subjonctif passé phrase - the topic of the lesson. Is it just confirming all the examples need the subjunctive? 

Well i bounced the question of prof / professeur off my neighbour's kids who are at secondary / high school, and to a person they replied prof or professeur. They regard "instituteur / institutrice" as a primary school teacher, and " l'enseignant(e)" as a general word for those in the teaching profession, although if it's at university level "professeur" is the norm. They should know and i'm not going to argue with them. And anyway, the prompts were clear and specific just as Cécile said so i can't see what the issue is ??