French language Q&A Forum

The rule with c'est vs il/elle is that you are speaking of a specific item.  In this lesson one of the examples doesn't appear to follow that rule:

The lesson translates "Is it a second-hand car?- No, it's new." to "C'est une voiture d'occasion? - Non, elle est neuve." 

Why doesn't the question use Elle instead of C'est?   They are talking about a specific car--i.e. the one purchased by the speaker.

I have spoken to several French natives regarding this issue...their age~ 35yo

1. They use 'suivre' for "taking a French course...Je suis un cours de français and never 'prendre' for a full course. But!! I was told that if you are referring to a specific class you can say: "Je prend une classe de français aujourd'hui"

2. For "I passed my bac"... I was thought to use 'Reussir'..J'ai réussi mon bac...They said 'Avoir' is used more commonly now.

I suspect that the common usage will vary as vary with regions of the country,as it does everywhere

I’m not sure about the English “physical efforts” , in my mind “physical effort seems less difficult (to me)”

so “l’effort physique me paraît moins difficile” ?

When speaking can you say "un euro virgule cinquante centimes" or is it always "un euro et cinquante centimes"?

Perhaps the lesson on "Writing decimal numbers in French" could be updated to cover this topic as well.

I pressed the report button, and it only opened up another identical page! I only wanted to report to technical staff that i hear an "s" between the end of voudrais  and the following tu. This is NOT a question.

So, in all literal senses, the way to further describe an item's purpose is to pair it with the action being done with/upon it. ( i.e. une planche à voile = a [  plank ] to be flown [ surf ] upon ) That is odd to say the least, but French grammar seems to be very similar to archaic English grammar. I suppose the Norman invasion is to blame for that, n'est-ce pas? When the aristocracy speak one language, and the peasants speak another, I suppose they found a nice halfway point between the two, which then evolved into modern English, a confusing tangle of rules, exceptions, and counterrules, all presided over by 5+ official institutions. 

 French is much nicer. The rules are odd, but fairly consistent. It is managed by the Àcadémie Française , and no other, has considerably less mixing, and is only truly messed up in Créole French [ The pitiful excuse for French the people of Louisiana speak ]. So even if I had to traverse the entire french-speaking world, I would find little more than dialect ( i.e. Quebècoise, Guiyanaise, Walloon, Langues d'Occitan et d'Oeil . ) Bíen faites, francophones!

Pardon for asking, but it states 'Elizabeth deux vient en France' in one of the Minikwizes for this lesson. I'm assuming she WENT to France, not came from [ in ? ] France. It makes no sense to me, but, to be honest, I had to do the country preposition lessons so many times it wasn't even funny. Perhaps I am being stupid, or perhaps I am just railing against my own inadequacies, but, To you I pose this question good sir or madame.

Why was it an error when I used “à l’heure” in the writing exercise “My kids’ back to school” B2?

It corrected me with “à temps” (for everything to be ready on time)

Thanks

Tammy