French language Q&A Forum

Hello, please advise why affreuse is in front of the noun. je souffre d'affreuses crampes

Thank you 

Au cours des années, elle m'a transmis sa passion - why is passé composé used? She clearly says 'over the years' so a repeated action? surely the imparfait would be used here?

When I click on the text "et installent projecteurs et caméras", the translation you provide is "and install projectors and videocameras". There are several ways to translate "projecteur" into English: it can also mean floodlight, spotlight and searchlight, besides the obvious translation "projector". 

They weren't entertaining Marshall Jodl by showing him movies. And even if they were, why would they need more than one projector?  Given the context, a much more likely translation of "projecteurs" is "floodlights". 

One of the hardest ones yet! It showed me that I am clearly not ready for a French aerobics class yet, so at least there's that, haha! 

Un jour on nous voudrons acheter une maison. Qui est-ce que le function de mot on dans le phrase precedent? 

Referring to “vous adorerez cette autre idée : modifier un pyjama en flannelle défraîchi.”

for

“you will love this other idea: making alterations to a pair of faded flannel pyjamas.”

I can only find “flanelle” (one “n”, not two) in the dictionaries. And this is a female noun. So should these answers all be “…en flanelle défraîchie.”?

"Wait, I'm passing Paul onto you."

What does this sentence mean? I'm not a native english speaker but this sentence makes no sense. 

Based on the french sentence, I deduce it has something to do with a phone conversation.

Petite question. Je n’ai rien trouvé concernant un doute que j’ai où le sujet dont on parle s’agit de plusieurs noms et avec quel mot on doit faire l’accord.

Exemple:  La liste des mots que j’ai apprise.  

I am aware that this has been discussed before but it is clear to me that in certain cases “passer une année” can be used.

For example, on the web page https://acupoffrench.com/french-grammar/an-vs-annee-2/, which also explains when to use “an” or “année”, there is the following example with passer and année used to stress the duration:

“Elle a passé quatre années à chercher un travail.”

So I think it would not hurt to explicitly mention this possibility to use année instead of an to stress the duration. 

For the general case (not just related to passer), I think the rule from “Advanced French Grammar”/Monique L’Huillier section 5.2.1 an/année is clearer than the “time unit” vs “duration” distinction: “an usually follows cardinal numbers, whilst année follows ordinal numbers, or an indefinite or demonstrative adjective”.

This rule does not hold for jour/journée, soir/soirée and matin/matinée and these cases  are treated separately in the book.

This rule is then followed up in the book with “If the year is modified in any way, “année” should be used” with the following examples.

“J’ai vécu à Londres pendant cinq ans.”

”J’ai gardé un très bon souvenir de mes cinq années à Londres.”