French language Q&A Forum

Hi,

I had written, "...  nous étions partis" in lieu of the recommended, "... nous étions parties". I don't understand the recommendation:

So "étions" as auxiliary "être" in imperfect (indicative) tense, 1st person plural, added to the past participle "parti" so as to construct the compound past perfect tense. 

I constructed the past particle as male gender plural so, "partis". This as we have two assumed female genders (Joséphine and the writer Amélie) as well as at least one other, gender unknown, as expressed through the larger sentence, "... et avec laquelle nous étions parties". 

I thought the rule for French grammar was, choose the male gender when the gender is unknown...l don't want to support patriarchy. I do want to get my grammar straight. Thanks!

Can I take a full TCF sample test, to determine my current level?

The recommended translation of 'you are an animal lover and a camping enthusiast' is 'Vous êtes un amoureux des bêtes et un passionné de camping'. Is it possible to explain why 'bêtes' is preceded by a definite article and 'camping' isn't?

I came across this question in the quizzes. Why are these two sentences correct? One uses the feminine form and the other the masc. They are both referencing the time in the past. How does one determine if it is about the duration or precise moment?

“J’ai passé la journée avec Martin.”

I spent a day with Martin

“J’ai passé un an en Espagne quand j’avais dix-neuf ans.”

I spent a year in Spain when I was 19

Although this wasn't an advanced exercise, I found it somewhat challenging and learned some new phrases, (such as "casser votre tirelire; au fil des annees; and s'enticher de). 

But, I have some questions:

Why not "a ete etabli..." for "a ete fondu..."?

"Beaucoup d'artistes mondialement connus sont restes..." for " De nombreux artistes de renommees mondiale ont sejourne..."?

"...Ernest Hemingway est devenu enchante par..." for "s'etait entiche de, etc...."?

"et le bar du Ritz porte maintenant son nom" for "et le bar du Ritz porte aujourd'hui son nom"? (which actually translates to "and the Ritz bar carries his name 'today'" or "is 'today' named after him").

And, for "the fairy-tale like hotel, why not, "un hotel qui ressemble a un conte de fees"?

Merci beaucoup pour votre reponse !

Sometimes Vouloir (to want) is conjugated as veux at the present tense, but sometimes it is conjugated as veux for the pronoun je. Does this have to do with formality?

I enjoyed listening to this voice. I had not heard it before, and it's nice to have a new and different voice to listen to. It's good practice to hear various people speak. I also appreciate the intonation that he uses, especially in the phrase..."et avec le temps, notre relation a changé."

It reminds me of the intonations that I used to hear and learned to use when living in France many years ago. I was wondering if the spoken word has possibly changed over time, (maybe due to the advent of social media?), as I don't hear these patterns very often anymore, when using this site or watching french movies on Netflix.

Why: "afin de pouvoir les utiliser comme un engrais naturel"

when, "afin l'utiliser comme un engrais naturel"

would seem to be a more elegant answer, and be a more literal translation? Adding pouvoir seems to complicate the issue.

My head is whirling after studying this long article, especially using the adverbs mieux / pire for making a general statement with être eg Ta télé est bien mais la mienne est mieux.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but surely in English you use the adjectival form here? You don’t say "yours is well …mine is better" but "yours is good…mine is better".

 I think there is scope to highlight this more fully. [Edit: and indeed the Lawless article on Bien vs Bon that Chris referred to 4 years ago, actually says that bien is an adjective when used with state-of-being verbs]