French language Q&A Forum

I have just run across this sentence in my reading, and I don't understand how/why the adverbial pronoun is used:

The introductory sentence is part of a conversation: 

-Vous ignorez qu'il est le propriétaire des parfums et des produits de beauté Mylène?

This is followed by the following sentence, which is the author's omnipotent observation about how little Maigret knew about perfumes:  

Il s'y connaissait si peu en produits de beauté! 

I understand what is being communicated, but I don't understand the grammar!

Please explain why the "s'y" construction is in this sentence.  

Merci!

Is effrayer no approproiate in place of faire peur

Although this was an exercise about using "devoir", I didn't understand how it expressed "to be late," which was son train a eu du retard Shouldn't it be "de retard" not "du retard?"

I believe the je form of the conditional of préférer is je préférerais, not je préfèrerais as in the text. Am I correct ?

To "Je suis partie ________ jours."

I answered "...pour une quinzième de..."

Is it incorrect to say "partie pour une quinzième de.."  ?

In the video there is no definite article in front of Israel. Why? Are there other countries that do not have a definite article beforehand?

‘Comme j’ai toujours eu du mal avec les maths...’  ‘As I’ve always had a struggle with math...’

I think that ‘always’ indicates a continued and repetitive sense so why is the verb not in the imparfait?

Thank.

The question was to translate, "You will ask me for money...." but the correct answer was "vous demanderez DE...." not "vous demandez A". I thought when you ask someone for something it was "demander a"

<< Mais en 1969, André Malraux le classera enfin au titre des monuments historiques >>

 I'm interested in the use of the future tense for classer here.  I can't find any rule about it anywhere.

Clearly this event took place in the past. Is this a mistake ? Shouldn't this have been in the passé simple to give it a literary/formal feeling ?  i.e. classa

<< Mais en 1969, André Malraux le classa enfin au titre des monuments historiques >>

Any thoughts welcome.  Thanks,  Paul.

When expressing the idea of passing by or popping into someone’s place is par always needed as well as chez? Examples in this lesson and the other on different uses of passer differ. 

Elle est passée chez Laurent hier. She passed by Laurent’s place yesterday.

Yann passera par chez Laura après le travail. Yann will pass by Laura’s place after work.