French language Q&A Forum

Hello.
Would "au cours des années" be considered correct too? If not, what would be the difference between "au fil des ans/années" and "au cours des années" ?
Thanks.

I've been struggling with this lesson for a while now and keep getting the answers wrong in tests.  I think I have it now but the additional research I've had to do suggests there are issues with this lesson. 

(1) The heading is a bit misleading, causing me to think for a long time that "if" made the phrase conditional,  whereas of course it's "would" that does that.  This caused me to think the phrase order was "Si [le conditionnel] (then) [L'imparfait]", whereas it's the opposite for most of the examples. The true order, I realise know, is "Si [l'imparfait] (then) [le conditionnel]", or "[le conditionnel], si [l'imparfait]".

(2) More importantly, the lesson does not mention that the tense of the "if" phrase can vary depending on the likelihood of the "result" phrase. This lesson is focused only on the unlikely outcome and does not discuss or even mention the likely or impossible outcomes as far as I can see.  Is there a reason for this? 

Line 11: on which professionals or amateurs can buy or sell.....

is being corrected to:

sur laquelle professionnels et amateurs peuvent acheter ou vendre........

Could I also use 'prudent' instead of 'vigilant'?

The phrase I saw: 

Je suis tout à fait satisfait du cadeau que j’ai trouvé pour Sarah. Je l’ai emballé dans DU JOLI PAPIER et je lui donnerai ce soir.

Here the "du joli papier" I thought it is not preceded by any "de" preposition. "emballer dans" is the preceding phrase. So why is DU used here? A mistake?

The sentence for translation was: "help clearing the table after eating."  I wrote "après avoir mangé" for "after eating" and this was marked wrong.  They wanted "après manger".  Can anyone help me understand why "après avoir mangé"   is wrong?

Seeking clarification on Maartens answer to Randa.  The link provided, indicated that 'toujours' could be in either tense. I felt the imparfait was indicated as the action "loving" is ongoing and not finished.   Would 'love' to read your response/s.

If you translate 'and suddenly, I'd realised that I could not live without you' as 'et soudain, je m'étais rendu compte que je ne pouvais pas vivre sans toi', the past participle is corrected to 'rendue' (because it's a female speaker). But my understand was that 'compte' is the direct object in this phrase and 'me' the indirect, and that therefore the past participle is invariable.