French language Q&A Forum

What does one base on to add "du" "de la" "de l' "? ........ 

Hi Aurélie

I was doing an exercise which has this question:

La valise qu'il ( est descendue, a descendue, a descendu) du grenier hier est neuve.

What will be the correct answer? As my understanding says intransitive verbs take être as auxillary but the answer given is a descendue ( why the accord?)

Hello! Why is timid spelled timide in this case? Wouldn’t timide be feminine agreement and not masculine - referring to Tom?

for translating the phrase, "who had been waiting for the snow...the correct answer used the imparfait. Wouldn't that be translated as was waiting? (Rather than had been waiting)

I thought I was fairly au fait with this, but this particular exercise has completely tangled me up. Why is it passé composé for "he continued to work"? Surely this is kind of ipso facto a "continuing activity in the past" so I don't get the rationale for it being passé composé. Similarly, surely he was writing beautiful lyrics throughout his career - a continuing activity in the past. So again, why the passé composé and not the imparfait? I'm mind-bogglingly confused here!

As they basically mean the same thing in this context.

I came across this sentence in one of the quizes. It is translated as: "Je sens la transpiration"

How does it change if I mean to say "I smell sweat" like somebody else's sweat; not mine.

It was marked incorrect, but doesn’t it fit the sentence better? It said that it should have been “Pendant qu’il va se préparer avec toi....”. 

Thanks!

Is it absolutely wrong to use est-ce que to form a question using names? Thanks. 

I had to organize as follows to make it easier to understand.  Please confirm.  Thx.

Qu'est-ce que c'est que + article + chose  

Qu'est-ce que c'est + article + chose  

Qu'est-ce que + article + chose  

C'est quoi + article + chose