French language Q&A Forum

I have listened to this portion perhaps ten times and it seems he is saying "il vit faut qu'on".  Is there some emphasis that my ear is not used to?

How would you rank the above-mentioned 5 alternatives in order to ask someone politely to do something?

For example:

1. Veuillez laisser un message.

2. Laissez un message.

3. Laisser/ez un message, s'il vous plaît.

4. Merci de laisser un message.

5. Nous vous invitons à laisser un message.

I feel that this is an ambiguous statement and could be passé composé (as the act of transition) or l'imparfait (as a state of being).  As in "My mother was Oriental, but my father came from Europe" vs. "They came from Europe to go to the funeral".  Compare: "Once upon a time, a king lived in his castle."

  Sarah ne faisait pas confiance à Thomas.

Sarah didn't use to trust Thomas.       In French can you really express the idea of “used to” (do something) just by using the past imperfect tense (as here)? Or does it need “avoir l’habitude de …” ? Is there a difference in meaning in French? Merci

There are a lot of interesting tense changes to consider in this exercise! But why do we hop back into the present tense here:

“until she gave birth to her daughter Claude”

“jusqu'à ce qu'elle accouche de sa fille Claude”

“jusqu'à ce qu'elle donne naissance à sa fille Claude”

I listened to this sentence loads of times trying to see if there was any hint of an ellision ( "je serai z-enfin" ). There was not, and thus I concluded that it must have been "serai" not "serais".  Is no ellision used after "serais" ?

Hi, in “Les filles, soyez gentilles et partagez vos affaires.” the audio for “gentilles” sounds incorrect. 

Why can’t I say “Je le trouve grossier/irrespectueux?” As the sentence read “I find it disrespectful?”

Hi, with regard to:

“when suddenly, an enormous sawshark swam above their heads!”

Half of the answers are of the type:

“quand soudain, un requin-scie énorme est passé au-dessus de leur tête !”

This set is in a format that I’ve encountered many times. 

The other half are of the type:

“lorsque soudain, un requin scie énorme leur est passé au-dessus de la tête !”

This set is outside of my grammatical experience. I’m okay with the “leur tête/la tête” difference, as I’ve learned that in French we don’t always use the possessive “leur”, and can use a definite article such as “la”, especially when the owner of the body part is obvious. But could you explain why in these “la tête” answers a “leur” has appeared in each case earlier in the sentence. Is this early “leur” necessary in order to change “leur tête” to “la tête”? How can we consider this early “leur” to connect to the later “tête” when it is separated from it so much?