French language Q&A Forum

“a dit Maman d'un ton admiratif en le voyant”

This seems such a strangely constructed sentence! Can anyone break it down?

(i) “admiratif” is an adjective (I think) but the possessive “ton” treats it like a noun. 

(ii) “voyant” seems to be used as a present participle here (“the seeing”), but I’ve only seen these preceded by “en” before. 

What is the necessity and meaning of "dessus" after tomber?  Why not just "bonnes choses vous tombent"?  Good things fall on you

The suggested grammar sections to read did not relate to what I got wrong, which was mostly prepositions or vocabulary. Does that mean you don’t have lessons on those points? Maybe you should add them. I don’t think you should test on points that you don’t have explanations for on your site.

I enjoyed your quiz on using à vs de, but I've had no success in locating a lesson where you illustrated the differences.  Can you share?

"Give birth" - why not "donner naissance"?

J'ai manqué mon père.

Mon père me manque.

Is there a difference？

Shouldn't there be an accent above the 'i' in apparaitront? 

I was marked incorrect for writing "apparaîtront".

The lesson seems to indicate that this separation is  'allowed' but 'irregular'.

 However it seems frequent and intrinsic enough in some translations to deserve identifying and defining as a rule of syntax.

If the 'possession' is the 'object' of the verb in the following clause then it is separated from dont and put after the verb in that clause. 'Dont' here is like a relative pronoun joining two clauses. All the examples support this  observation.

Tu as jeté la chaussure dont le talon est cassé.You threw away the shoe with the broken heel [lit. whose heel is broken]

BUT???Tu as jeté la chaussure chère dont  j'ai cassé  le talon.

Les enfants, dont je connais la maman, sont bien élevés.
François, dont j'ai rencontré la femme le mois dernier