French language Q&A Forum

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"

In this listening practice, it is stated that the preferred response is 'je prends mon petit-déjeuner' - that is, with the hyphen. I left the hyphen out. Checking on the Academie Francaise site dictionary, it does not appear to recognise the hyphenated form as being accepted at all, and refers to déjeuner as either the first or midday meal, noting that in common use 'un petit déjeuner' is used for 'a breakfast'. It does note that déjeuner itself is also a verb intransitive form, but does not list petit-déjeuner (or the informal petit-déj) as accepted. The Academie is obviously prescriptive generally and French for France, but even for dictionairies with a more descriptive approach, such as Larousse, the hyphenated form is not listed as a 'noun', and only as being used as a V.I. (familier) at times (ie Je petit-déjeuner and translated as meaning «je prends (son) petit déjeuner». On the other hand, le Robert dico en ligne, does denote the hyphenated form as a noun. At the least, I think it is incorrect in the lesson to suggest the preferred form should be hyphenated, as at best it seems to me an argument can be made that either is acceptable (although not if the Academie remains the ultimate reference for material on this website). Worth a look?

In the above question the answer is cela,. Can it is alternatively written as " je le lui ai promis "

This is under the ‘sound different’ section, but (to me) they sound the same. 

Going up to the attic takes être? I’m confused since the instructions seem clear that going up to something takes avoir. Help please? 

The following sentence in the lesson under subtitle "[un] peu de" is unclear: Used with uncountable quantities, un peu de means a little, a bit of ... and peu de means little, not much of, few. It sounds like the uncountable quantities phrase refers to both un peu de and to peu de. This doesn't jive with the two examples that follow, in that, while argent is not countable (can't have 4 moneys), ami is countable (can have 4 friends). Stephanie's comment in the discussion section clears this up, where she says Peu is few as in not many/much, and you can use that with countables and uncountables alike. I'm suggesting that the lesson sentence should be reworded to make this point clear.

Hi room and experts

Please can someone explain use of  'en' in sentence, 'Nous savons que tu as travaillé dur pour en arriver là'

I am confused because my understanding is that  'en' is used to replace a (de + phrase) proposition following a verb. However, in this case,  I do not see how the verb 'arriver' could have been followed by the  'de' proposition and hence I am confused

Please help 

Like everyone else, I find this lesson very confusing, and I think it is because it's using a very poor example of when to use articles. I believe the translation is incorrect. 

Je n'aime ni le fromage ni le lait.
I like neither cheese nor milk.

If this example is talking about specific cheese and specific milk, then the English translation should be, "I like neither the cheese nor the milk." But that is not what you have here. The translation you give is general, not specific. It really makes the whole lesson contradictory and confusing.