French language Q&A Forum

Hi all.  Can someone advise me as to when one uses ça as 'it' rather than le, la, l' eg. je le déteste or je déteste ça?  I have just done an exercise where the latter was used for 'I hate it', I would have used 'le'.  I can understand it being used for I hate 'that' but here it was used for 'it'.  Thanks in advance/ merci en avance, Kevin

When I look up "failli" in Google translate, it has "bankrupt." Yet the words "failli sursauter" translate as "almost startled" (comme "presque sursauter).

So it kind of means "You failed to be startled"? (Failli faire, mais no?) Wow... that's a stretch.

Is the meaning of "presque" (almost) slightly different then? 

Why can't we say "N'importe que se passe" to say "Whatever happens"

"Là, une multitude d'étals de poissons fraîchement pêchés aiguisaient l'appétit des passants"

I don't understand the plural here: Isn't it "Une multitude d'étals" - multitude being singular - which is the subject of the verb - rather than "D'étals" themselves, which would be plural.

I'm trying to devine whether there is some rule at work here here, or whether it's pretty much optional.

This was a great exercise. Just wanted to flag that sometimes after submitting responses, no corrections displayed and I was therefore unable to mark myself.

I chose the correct answer and yet I was scored as if I had not. This is not the first time this has happened. Why does it happen and how can I correct the situation when it happens?

Not sure if anyone is gonna read this, but for those that are from countries where a billion means a million million, french uses the word billion as well. 

This page confused me a bit since Spanish is my first language and in that language we generally use billion the same way as French, whereas the one thousand million meaning is mostly used in the English speaking world.

I read in the site somewhere that with body parts its always the definite article and not possessive adjective. But here its says ses joues and i think son coeur. 

Why does the text switch from imparfait to passé composé here:

Nous étions vraiment désolés. Nous nous sommes excusés

Why are the adjectives feminine when transport is masculine?