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Danielle A.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Phrasing choice mistakes

Hi,

I made several errors with my phrasing choices and was wondering if any of the following could have been correct:

1. Shouldn't the prompt for " Et tu as trouvé ça difficile" be "and did you find that difficult?" - since it's referring to the reading of a book in french, not the book itself? Wouldn't the translation of "did you find it [the book] difficult? " be "Et tu l'as trouvé difficile?"

2. It was quite difficult and daunting at times - Could you use bien instead of plutôt/assez to mean quite?

3. Could you said "je compte desormais lire un livre en français plusieurs fois par an."?

Thanks!

Asked 10 months ago

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Frank C.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Translation of 'could'Another problem area! 'Je pouvais' or 'Je pourrais' ? I often get this wrong ! The sentence is as follows: "Then, my wife asked me if I could give her the movie time schedule." I believe that I have seen 'could' translated by both the imperfect and the condional tenses. How do I determine which is appropriate?

Asked 10 months ago

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Frank C.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Imperfect vs. Passé Composé Often a problem! I had two different rationales for determining the tense in the first sentence, i.e. "I've never had glasses before." My first thought was that the word 'avant' suggested passé composé, i.e. referring to an event in the past. Upon further consideration, the fact that glasses were not worn in the past seemed to me to be a continuing action, i.e. not wearing glasses over an extended period of time, and therefore called for the imperfect tense. I talked myself out of the first choice and opted for the second, which turned out to be a mistake. Why is the second rationale wrong?

Asked 10 months ago

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Frank C.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

La traduction de ’squint’

J’ai traduit le mot, ’squint’, par ’loucher’ au lieu de ’plisser les yeux’. Le dictionnaire cite tous les deux comme acceptable, mais l’exercice accepte seulement le deuxième. Pourquoi ?

Asked 10 months ago

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chiara b.C1Kwiziq community member

What is the difference between ça and cela? I tend to use cela because when when ç needs to be a capital vowel it is difficult to use it

What is the difference between ça et cela ?

Asked 10 months ago

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Helena K.C1Kwiziq community member

Le vs de

I don’t understand why you say ” Mais je n’avais pas LE choix”, but (I google translated this, as I first thought you were wrong here) "Je n’avais pas DE choix"

Please explain as I’m learning on my own and have no teacher to ask. I don’t even get where to look in the grammar for this.

Asked 10 months ago

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Rana N.A2Kwiziq community member

Question Générale à propos de la langue française?

Pourquoi est la langue française si confusant?

Asked 10 months ago

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Mohamad S.B1Kwiziq community member

Le Liban ou La Liban

Dans le texte, j'ai remarqué que "Liban" est parfois précédé de "Le", et parfois de La. Pouriez-vous clarifier cela? SVP.

Asked 10 months ago

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Max K.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Descendre - how to ascertain whether it takes avoir or etre in passe compose

As near as I can tell, no transitive usage of DESCENDRE is followed by a preposition, and whenever descendre does take a preposition, it's an intransitive verb. This doesn't tell which of the many meanings of DESCENDRE obtain, but it does seem a reasonable heuristic device. Your thoughts....?

Asked 10 months ago

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Kathryn L.A2Kwiziq community member

How to hear voices on phone. Trying to have conversation for lessons

Asked 10 months ago

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