dans le/au

Question

The test statement is "J'habite _____ Texas." The hint is "Le Texas is an American State." Shouldn't the answer be "J'habite dans le Texas" according to the very first example in the regions, states, counties section yet the answer given is "J'habite au Texas." All the exceptions are overwhelming but this seems to be exactly like the example.

Accepted Answer

Bonjour Jody,
Maarten is correct. Both 'Texas' and 'New Mexico' are both exceptions in French and use 'au' as per the lesson content - see explanations as to why here: au Texas / Nouveau-Mexique
I can understand that coming across exceptions can be frustrating at times and yet every language has them ;-) The cases of Swiss cantons were not originally part of the lesson and were added following a suggestion from a Kwiziq user. 
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !

Answer

Yes, the exceptions can become overwhelming. This exception - for Texas (and also New Mexico and Quebec) is specifically noted in the lesson though.

Depending on where you live, and your desired usage of French, you might want to ignore 'learning' some of the exceptions - for instance, even though my French family lives close to the Swiss border, I have no need to know the details for Swiss Cantons. Sure if I read about them, I will try to 'acquire' the correct usage, but 'expending' rote learning capacity on them is not useful to me.

Answer

HI Jody, l get the overwhelm, the discombobulation. What works for me, is to take bites out of an overwhelming chunk. In this case, l decided to ignore the Swiss Cantons until quizzed wrong on them. That happened after a few quizzes in which we had focused on the general rules. Now, l find that l need to spend some time with an atlas, to learn more about the Swiss Cantons 😀