French language Q&A Forum

In one of the dictées, I ran into the expression "d'autant que je me souvienne"...par exemple, je n'aime pas les aliments sucrés d'autant que je me souvienne." I haven't liked sweet foods for as long as I can remember (or maybe more literally "for as much as I remember."  Why is "de" used before avant que?  Does that kind of replace "for" in English?  And why does it take the subjunctive?  I'm guessing that perhaps it takes the subjunctive because memory is fallible and perhaps there's an element of doubt?  Perhaps one is not remembering correctly?

I have read the answers above but it is still not clear to me whether there is any difference in meaning between bien que and même si (regardless of the tense following). Thank you.

The use of "de" truly escapes me. In this exercise, why does the "de" after "profiter des jouets" becomes "des" but in "plateau de fruits de mer" it does not? I thought that when the structure requires a "de" (as in profiter de qch or beaucoup de), the "de" didn't change to du or des (like un plauteau de qch), whereas when it doesn't require it, you use it like "some" and it does change to agree with the noun (like here with commander qch becomes "commander des pizzas").

This is really confusing: If someone says, "I bought a shirt for him" or "I bought a shirt from him." Do both of these get translated to:

Je lui ai achete une chemise

Please enlighten me. Thank you!

I don't seem to be able to find anything on this topic, although it is quite fundamental and also allows one to practice lots of tenses as one switches between direct and indirect speech.  Any chance of this topic appearing?

My go-to dictionary, Word Reference, gives 'tout l’ensemble’ and 'somme toute' as translations.  One of the acceptable translations was 'en somme', which is close to what WR used.  However, 'tout l’ensemble', which is what I chose, was not accepted.   Should it be added?

I have not come across this use of mettre before. Is it commonly used to express physical or other feelings? 'I put on shivers'