French language Q&A Forum

Pense-t-on que Caligula était fou?

What exactly is meant by "these can only be used on their own" when talking about "le jour d'avant/d'après"? Maybe I'm missing something obvious but for me the examples don't really encapsulate the concept. Do you mean that they can't be used to detail more about the thing that happened - only that which happened before and after it? For example you couldn't say:"le jour d'avant de la visite de ma tante" (the aunts visit being the springboard for what has happened the day before or after)

but you could say it when using "la veille":

"la veille de la visite de ma tante"

(and vice versa for le jour d'après and le lendemain)?Looking at the examples above of:"Le jeudi d'après, elle était partie.""Le mercredi d'avant, elle lui avait dit toute la vérité."etc.,

this is the only way I can see that le jour d'avant/d'après are different. They talk about what happened before/after the thing, but nothing more about the thing itself.

Please let me know if I've got this completely wrong... :-)

Which is correct - un lave-vaisselle or une machine à laver la vaisselle?

Can this structure be used with futur proche? (is this considered a compound tense?)

Eg. We are only going to buy one toy. ——> Nous n’allons que acheter un jouet.

Or do we use futur simple (this is a simple tense?) ——> Nous n'achèterons qu'un jouet.

I had a test question to fill in the blanks: comment ___ vos enfants? 

I put : vont-ils

The answer is : vont

I don't understand why I am wrong. If so, how to express the same meaning with inverted question? Thanks.

For the question: Nous voyagions souvent en été . To me this reads as “we often used to travel in the summer” if it was the imparfait. But the translation says “we traveled often in the summer”.

I make this out to be the passé composé which should be nous avons souvent voyagé en été  

Help!