French language Q&A Forum

One of my 'test recommended' questions was: Il prend toujours l’avion. - Non, il ________ l'avion

The answer given was: 'ne prend jamais' and my answer 'ne prend jamais de' was marked incorrect.

Why is there no 'de' in this case when the 'vous mangez de la viande' example on this page shows there is?

Really useful rules & exceptions lists to help structure my thinking. Thanks. 

I have come across uses of le conditionnel passé avec devoir where the meaning appears to lean more towards “would have” than “should have”.  Par exemple “les alertes auraient dû sauver des vies”, by the context of the article could have been interpreted as a praise of the alert system as opposed to criticising the fact that the alert system did not do its job. Alternatively, it could mean criticism of people for not taking notice of the alerts. So, does “ils auraient dû + infinitive” always mean “should have”, or is there some subtle shading of meaning? 

Nous étions tous chocolat

Is this an idiomatic expression? It's not clear to me what this means. It seems that Julien forgot to buy the chocolate eggs, so does this expression mean that they had no chocolate? I've looked it up in dictionaries and online translators, but nothing comes up!

Rien de tel qu’un bon repas après tous ces efforts !

Could this be homonymically rendered :

Rien de tel qu’un bon repas après tous ses efforts ! meaning after ones efforts

Is there a way to target a specific language point?  For example, if I look at an explanation of a particular point, then 'notebook' it, sometimes there is a mini kwiz below, but is it possible to get more practice on one particular topic? 

Pourquoi "Moi aussi j'aime les salades"  Elle référence des salades en générale non?  Pas les salades spécifique?

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