French language Q&A Forum

I understand from the disucssion that you can use depuis with the present tense or passé composé but I have this question:

Depuis quand est-ce que vous êtes vous mariés ? ( a point in time in the past)

Asking a person who is married how long they've been married (and still are): Vous êtes vous mariés depuis 30 ans? (Past tense so does this mean they're no longer married?)  or, should you say, Vous êtes mariés depuis 40 ans? (still married).

This always trips me up so thank you ahead of time for your help!

I listened to the first phrase many time, and it definitely sounds like she says "et" and not "and."  

D’aussi loin qu’elle se souvienne: I get confused about the translation of ‘could’ in this context and had translated this as : ‘D’aussi loin qu’elle pouvait se souvenir’. Can you direct me to an explanation of when ‘could’ is not a tense of pouvoir but a subjunctive?

Judging by the comments below and my own experience of this lesson i think it could still be tweaked to improve it.  It think it would be helpful to: 

* add - write out - relevant (new to some) vocabulary for decimals, commas and currencies

* emphasise how the rules for writing numbers in French are the same (or different) when used for currencies vs other contexts

* provide and describe a few more complex examples, including the outliers (eg uncommon use of a decimal point in French), with at least one example of a French number which translates to three or more decimal points in English. The latter would be very useful because it highlights how our Eng/French translation brain can get confused (evident in these discussions) because it looks identical to the English version of numbers in the thousands.  

Hi, in “d'où l'on pouvait admirer la vallée du Rouvres en contrebas,” is the “l’” in “l’on” purely for euphonics (i.e. it carries no meaning)?

... car le bureau de poste local n'offrait plus ce service. 

In this section of the sentence the 'S' at the end of 'pluS' is pronounced. This seems at odds with the lesson 'Ne ... plus = no more/no longer' which states: -  

Note that when plus has a negative meaning (no more), you don't pronounce the final 's', except when you do the liaison with a vowel following ('z' sound).

... in the exercise plus is followed by 'ce' and 'ce' does not start with a vowel and as such should not be pronounced? 

Could the following phrase given above:

Merci à Léa et Julie, sans l'aide desquelles rien n'aurait été possible

also be phrased as:

Merci à Léa et Julie, sans desquelles rien n'aurait pu etre possible

The rules you give are quite useful. Thank you.

One thing that I would add is that I can remember easier if I think in terms of who is actually entering. If the Subject is entering, then we use être, but if the "entering" is being done by someone/something other than the Subject, then we use avoir.

Mes filles sont entrées en CP cette année. -> Mes filles

Nous avons entré les informations dans le programme. -> les informations

This works in other cases where we need to decide between avoir and être.  (or where the sentence seems to indicate that the action is not done by the sentence subject)

Is it not acceptable here to say 'Cherchez-vous'?

Please could you add the term 'kernel' or 'stone' to your translation of 'noyau' ('pit')? This would be helpful for UK learners.