French language Q&A Forum

Ok, so "Comment cela se fait-il?" by itself is the formal way of saying "How come?"

"Comment cela se fait-il que..." is the formal way of saying "How come...?" but since it is redundant the cela is often dropped.

"Comment se fait-il?" is never said by itself.

Have I understood correctly?

1). You are all doing your homework (you, all of you, are doing your homeworks, not a single person doing other things) --> tous works on vous

2). You are doing all your homeworks (and not missing any homework from any subject) --> tous works on devoirs

In this exercise, can we substitute the preposition  “à” for “dans” in any or all of these sentences:

1. Nous irions ensemble dans des galeries d’art (ou à des galeries d’art) ?

2. Nous pourrions manger dans un bon bistrot (ou à un bon bistrot) ?

3. Je l’emmènerais dans un charmant petit parc (ou à un charmant petit parc) ?

I put “à” for (1) and (3) and wondered if it was acceptable alternative, similar to saying “on va au cinéma” ou “à la boulangerie”.

My question is similar to Liz.  While I resolved the test question "Ce matin, ________ monté au grenier pour ranger un peu." by acknowledging that you dont 'climb the attic' but rather 'climb??  into the attic' and therefore needs 'ETRE', I cannot convince myself re  the sentence "I  got up on my horse".

If you translated as he 'I mounted my horse" then J'ai monté mon cheval.

But visually and maybe literally "i got up on my horse"  is the difference between the dashing hero Lone Ranger style who really mounts and and the bad-guy Jack Palance who slowly 'gets up on his horse' and therefore needs time to "il est monté".

Ok I am being silly. But would you translate the english sentence "i got up on my horse " exactly as you would "I mounted my horse" ?  Sad if true because then in french you would lose something in the transaltion.

Eux and nous was the answer but stress pronoun should not be 1st?

I am a little confused 

Regarding the question asked by Kyaw: perhaps the lesson "Nouns that are plural in English but singular in French, and vice versa" could have a few more examples added, including words such as 'vaisselle'. This is only a suggestion! 

Thanks for the quick and definitive response Cecile.

Andrea

This is based upon previous tests.  In one, the correct answer is given as "Ce qui me touche,c'est son pauvrete."  In another test, the answer is said to be "Ce que je trouve angoissant, c'est son mode de vie."  These seem to me to be very similar but in one there is "ce qui" and in the other, "ce que"  I thought I understood this issue but the difference between these questions makes me a bit confused.  Could you possibly take the time to explain why they are different from one another?  It may take more than a referral back to the lesson.  Thank you!

Why is it « nouvel » and not « neuf » when the raincoat would be brand new from the store? I thought neuf is for new, never been used, and nouvel is for been used but still pretty new.