Salut Christopher,

I had a little smile to myself  --  not to ridicule your point, but to reflect on my thoughts years ago on this very issue.

The point is the term "literal".  For an English speaker's way of understanding the French; all sorts of little "tricks" may be used that are unique to the English speaker but I would say irrelevant to the French teacher's lesson.

I suspect this is why you are not able to get your point acted upon. Maybe you just have to "go with the flow" and use whatever language tool you find helpful to your understanding but not expect any action from the lesson constructors in this regard.

Just my way of offering some sympathetic support be it useful or not.

Bonne journée

Jim

Christopher, 

I agree and also would not use the description ‘literally’ here as the term can have multiple meanings, as per Collins, and is confusing the issue. 

 https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/literally 

If wanting to explain it at all, better in my view to specifically say ‘direct’ or ‘word for word’ translation, and point out that such direct translation from French to English is not ‘correct’ because it is not a natural sentence in modern English  (at least, it’s not standard in my part of the English speaking world, and I assume that if it is not considered ‘correct’ in the exercise,  that is the case in England as well).

It seems more important to me for a French speaker learning English to know that the sentences used in French, do not translate directly to English, and a single, ‘simple’ phrase will suffice in English. That is not pertinent to this course however.

On the other hand for native English speakers, all that is really needed is to know that there are several French expressions in use that match ‘what is it/this/that etc ? ‘ and how to decide which of the expressions to use routinely, and which just to be aware of for the occasional encounter. 

The lesson should be modified and simplified, I think.