French language Q&A Forum

“We would gather at the … table”

translates to:

On se retrouvait à la table…

On se rassemblait à la table…

On se réunissait à la table…

How is the “would” in “We would gather” reflected here?  How is this different from “we gathered”, “we used to gather”, or “we were gathering”?

Same thing with “and we'd devour …” translating to “et on dévorait…”. 

The French imparfait seems natural here. Maybe it’s really the function of the English word “would” that’s confusing me when trying to analyse it. It’s the same word as the conditional “would”, but this is not conditional. It’s not the main verb, e.g. “to gather”. It’s almost like an English imperfect version of “to be”. 

Helpful comments welcome! 

Bonjour,

Can you break down this sentence for me please? I can't quite understand the last 3 parts why it formed forever :)

Merci!

In this phrase from the solution to "Un voyage de rêve", the word "nous" presumably refers to a father, mother and children. So why the final "e" in "envoûtées"? I'd use "envoûtés" here.

For the above question, I am marked wrong for putting "le 1 mai", with the correct answer being "le 1er mai".

The lesson text implies to me that either are correct. It states that French dates require cardinal not ordinal numbers and includes "un (1)" in the list of examples of cardinal numbers. The "le premier (1er)" is then listed as an exception that "we do use". It is not clear from this whether "1er" must or may be used.

Could this please be clarified? 

Since the beginning of the festivities is a precise and limited event, I thought this would use passe compose "ont commencees." Can someone help me understand why this is imperfait?

And the last sentence: J'ai toujour trouve ca magique," I had thought this would be imparfait since it's ongoing and indefinite.

Oi, how do you conjugate avoir in past and present form?

When is "we went into (the garden)" "Nous sommes sortis dans le jardin" and when is it "nous sommes allé dans le jardin"  The former is used in this exercise but the latter was  used in the first exercise "A day with granddad" 

Just a note, when there are tips like the quote below, though this is could be very helpful, the fancy grammar terms without any down to earth french examples right after would make a lot of new students just give up without realizing an example is in the article somewhere. Maybe consider adding examples right after it, at least to save time?

Thanks for the fantastic website! 

"Compound tense : en + [auxiliary] + [past participle] + [number]"