French language Q&A Forum

Would 'doué' have been as good as 'talentueux' here?

I notice that the preferred translation of 'which makes him the first Frenchman to be in charge of the ISS' is 'ce qui fait de lui le premier Français en charge de la SSI' rather than 'ce qui en fait le premier ...'. All the grammar books I look at say that en can stand for 'de' plus a person - but I can see that in practice 'en fait' for 'makes him' is almost never said in French. Is it just too literary for this kind of phrase?

Hi, I think there are too many hints in many of these exercises (including this one). Specifically, the type of hint that tells you what word or words to use. These prevent you from making your own attempt. Personally, I’d remove these.

Correct answer given is with ‘nulle part’ at the end. No problem with that but what is wrong with ‘n’importe où’? I’ve looked at the discussions and can’t find a definitive explanation for appropriate use of one over the other. Doesn’t ‘nulle part’ mean nowhere rather than anywhere? Merci as ever for guidance.

The hint that is given first has cinque with lowercase, but when I used that I got it wrong. 

Why can't we use "vraiment" here for "really"? and why does it contract to "de" ? I know its because of the quantity of "beaucoup" however the expression is "avoir du mal à"?