French language Q&A Forum

Dear Aurelie,

Thanks for the excellent exercises, precise grammer and support.

I have a question about Futur Proche and Futur Simple. At what point/time do we change from Futur Proche to Futur Simple: 6 hours, 1 day,...? I do not remember seeing any rules about this.

Thanks in advance for your response.

Chris

Shouldn't this be:

Marie "EN" a déjà tous achetés.  

Since the article here is "des" and not "les"... We just know there are "some" presents to buy, not any specific ones.

I've always been confused by this: "j'aurai du" translates as "I should have" and not as "I will have had to...." but these are not quite the same, I think. "I will have had to catch the 22 bus" suggests that I did catch that particular bus, to achieve whatever, whereas "I should have" suggests that I didn't catch that bus, and perhaps failed in my intention. Similarly for "j'aurai pu" - "I could have" not "I will have been able".

Any advice/explanation appreciated!

Can you give me some idea of the relative strength of these? I was showing an apartment (I'm a broker) and the French client used "j'adore" to refer to the countertops... which confused me. To an English speaker, "adore" seems like a cognate, but in English we generally wouldn't say "I adore these countertops" -- that would likely come across as either 1) over-the-top or 2) sarcastic.

Does "j'adore" better translate as "I really like" or "I think these are cool/great"? And is it equal in strength to "j'aime"?