French language Q&A Forum

Is prendre l'air an idiomatic expression?  What does it mean, please?  (e.g. to put on airs, to act in a certain way, etc.??)

I spent many dejected days trying to understand the following rule in this lesson. "the main difficulty here is that in French you cannot use a conjugated verb after la veille or le lendemain, unlike in English: the day after he left / the day before you were born.

Instead you will use de + noun, as such:'

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The imperative appeared out of the blue.  (I am not using imperative here in the grammar sense by the way but as a prohibitory order) It also seemed contradictory, because the sentence, 'The day after, I was enrolling at university/ Le lendemain, j'allais m'inscrire à l'université.    came right before it. ...a conjugated verb 'j allais' following lendemarin.

 What seems to be the case is that 'le lendemain'  or 'la veille' CANNOT be 'conjoined' with a descriptive clause or phrase for associated events  WITHOUT punctuation.  You identify the day using le lendemain or la veille but to add associated actions you must express them with a separate punctuated clause/phrase or use 'de + noun".

Examples:

the day after i was enrolling at university.../ le lendemain de mon inscription à l'université

the day after, I  was enrolling at university...Le lendemain, je m'inscrivais à l'université.

I used conte in my translation rather than the given "histoire," is there a difference between the two or are they completely interchangeable?

Why is "He's thinking of her" - Il pense à elle instead of Il lui pense?

If someone were to ask the question "Pense-il a Marie?" Would the answer be "Oui, il lui pense."  

Why can't we use "fait le natation" as a translation for "my sister goes swimming every saturday"? In another lesson it talks about how fait le natation is for regular swimming or team.

i thought with body parts it was usually 'les' which should be used.  In the suggestions during the exercise, there were options to use either. Does it depend on the verbe (trempe or plongé) ?

I think this translation for  «Tu n'as pas une clope? Si.» is a bit confusing in the lesson.

In the English, the inversion reads as expecting that the person does have a smoke, thus the following "Yes, I do" isn't disagreement.

I think dropping the inversion and more closely following the original would better convey the French phrase, as in: "You haven't (got) a smoke? Yes, I do."

The question in the test quiz "Cette année, Michaël ________ perdre du poids" is marked wrong if you enter "doit", it wants "a besoin de".  Whilst this is correct in the context of this lesson, as far as I can see looking at the lesson comparing the use of Devoir and Avoir besoin de, the use of "doit" would also be reasonable.