French language Q&A Forum

What position would <> take?

Bonjour Madame Cécile !

A sentence provided reads- 

1.Les gens...........on a passé une semaine en France, avaient deux chats adorables.

The answer I gave was -> avec qui/avec lesquels.

However, the correct answer was -> chez qui/chez lesquels.

2.Le bâtiment.............tu avais garé ta voiture était juste à côté de la poste.

Here also, Madame , the correct option was devant lequel as opposed to dans lequel.(mentioned by me)

3.Connais-tu le médecin.............. il s’est fait soigner ?

In this case I am confused whether the right answer is chez lequel or par lequel ?

I request you to please provide a grammatical explanation why my options were not the accepted ones.

Merci beaucoup pour votre réponse !

Bonne journée !

Does the word intensivement not exist in French? I used it in a test and it was marked incorrect and intensément given as the correct version.
 

This is a question of the usage of French definite article “le”. I have encountered following two French sentences:

(1)  Il faut que vous puissiez parler français avant d’aller en France.

(2)  Pour apprandre le français, il faut que vous regardiez des films français.

As can be seen from these two sentences, you can notice that the phrase “ …parler français…”in the sentence (1) appears without the French definite article of “le”, but that the phrase “…apprandre le français…” in the sentence (2) appears with the French definite article of “le”.

Why doesn’t the definite article of “le” need in the sentence (1)?  And why does the definite article of “le” need in the sentence (2)?

The group à + [people] becomes simply their matching indirect pronoun, as follows:

Don’t certain verbs require a tonic (stress) pronoun after à, rather than the indirect object pronoun before the verb ? 

For example - "Je pense à vous" "Tu dois faire attention à lui"

I'm unsure of when/how to use des

If I want to use des as in the plural indefinite article, like des carottes would it be:

J'ai besoin des carottes - I need some carrots. 

Or would that sentence translate as: I need THE carrots because de+les= des?

For those interested (and who couldn't find the word "tramontagne" anywhere), here is a definition for a similarly spelled word that I found : "La tramontane est un vent violent, froid (en température ressentie) et sec en provenance du nord-ouest qui souffle contre les Pyrénées et au sud du Massif central, puis dans le Languedoc et le Roussillon. ... Le terme de « tramontane » vient du latin transmontanus qui signifie « au-delà des monts »". So it's similar to the Mistral wind (also mentioned in the same sentence in the exercise), with the Mistral being maybe a bit more localised and severe.

Je suis Robert!   Aujourd'hui c'est mon dernier jour de travailler!  This dictee was the perfect way for me to celebrate my retirement.  Thanks for all you do  and especially for this particular exercise!

Stuart