French language Q&A Forum

I’ve seen this example a that doesn’t t follow the rule:. Elle pense à sa famille … Elle y pense 

Is it acceptable to say 'nuits hivernales' here?

Pam

Hey everyone, 

I’m a novice when it comes to spoken French and the subtleties of the language but  I really want to do it justice when I reference it in my novel. The particular scene I need help with is a first person account of a French woman where she tells the reader about an occasion when was approached by English Gentleman (an official and very well educated) who was fluent French speaker, but not a native, and how she knew he wasn't French. I wanted to include details of how she

she might have missed initially if she wasn’t paying too much attention to him but as her guard was up already in the scene, she was able to spot the giveaways that others may have missed. 

Whether it be pronunciation, tense, inflection or something to do with the time etc. 

The English man in the scene approached the French woman when she’s at work in a post office and hands her a note. He tells her something along the lines of  ”I need this delivered by tomorrow morning, 9:30 at the latest. Tracked” with a French name and address on the envelope. I’m thinking something around the way he says the time could be interesting, but I’m not sure how it would work yet?

What are some subtle giveaways that native French speakers pick up with non native French speakers that indicate to them them that they’re not French?  (That aren’t so obvious.)

Any thoughts will be helpful. Thank you for your time🙏🏻

The quiz question

which leads to this lesson is ambiguous in my opinion. I selected Non, je n'ai pas un enfant purely because I would have expected the english for je n'ai pas un enfant to be I don't have children instead of no, I don't have a child. They have slightly different meanings and I believe my answer to be more accurate. I stand to be corrected on that though?

Please help me to understand the meaning with an example. "mise en commun"

MISE EN COMMUN

I wrote "Puis nous irons chez nous vers 16 heures", is that really wrong. I see that "rentrerons" is better, but is it wrong what i wrote?

For the sentence, "I've faced many challenges since I became a parent...", why do you use the passe compose instead of the present tense? E.g., je rencontre de nombreux défis depuis que je suis devenu parent.

Pourquoi le phrase "Il s'en occupe tout de suite" veut dire "He takes care of them right away. (i.e. things)" au lieu de  "He takes care of it right away" dans le test? Si je disais "Je m'occupe de mon problèm," pourrait-on utilise "en" pour remplacer le seul problèm?

Hi, this struck me as odd: "vous devriez peut-être considérer que la relation n'est pas n'est pas censée durer" - why not just "n'est pas censée durer"? Why the repetition?