Seems odd....

Question

Nous venons juste d'apprendre la nouvelle.
We've just heard the news.....

I find it rather disconcerting and only slightly confusing, but often for me the structure and specific wording in french is left somewhat "open ended". This sentence is a perfect example. We have learned that Entendre is to hear and Apprendre is to learn, and yet here you see them used almost in error. If we are saying we have just learned of the news, we should state that and if we have just heard it then why not say that? Why use the word learned and say heard? Seems odd. Further, why include "just" in a sentence that already implies this meaning with the passé récent of Nous venons d'.... if we translate this sentence Without the word "just" as shown above.... what do we have? Nous venons d'apprendre la nouvelle... ? And we are going to use Heard in the translation, why not, Nous venons d'entendre la nouvelle? Lastly, why do we not use Les nouvelles for the news, i think technically La Nouvelle is the new?!? It seems we say a lot things we don't mean.... and mean a lot of things we don't say..... perhaps it's the same in English.... can someone offer me some sound logic in this regard? Nous venons d'entendre les nouvelles...  We just heard the news....Thank you so much....

Answer

Bonjour Daniel !

The explanation is very simple: in French the colloquial way to express "to hear the news" - i.e. to learn of something that happened - is "apprendre la nouvelle" : you would never use "entendre" with "news".
Note: you could use "entendre dire que..." to say "to hear that..." 
In that context, you will use "la nouvelle" as here it's usually one specific piece of news you've just heard, so in French you will use the singular form.

As for the use of "juste" with "venir de", it's common but not compulsory as "venir de" already contains the notion of close past action:
"Nous venons d'apprendre la nouvelle."
or
"Nous venons juste d'apprendre la nouvelle."
If anything, it emphasises the proximity in time of the past action.

I hope that's helpful!
À bientôt !

Answer

Thank you. Do you know if they have a book or PDF of All the lessons for paying students?

Thank you....

Answer

Hi Daniel - no we don't have a book or PDF. Kwiziq is designed to work interactively with you. The A.I. constantly updates its knowledge of your needs based on your kwiz answers and recommends the lessons best suited to those each time. If you want to focus on specific lessons though, the full list is in the library and you can add them to your notebook(s).

Hope that helps!

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Ok Thanks. I contacted customer service, as I have not received the links for the writing exercises and yet I am signed up to both this and Laura's emails. 
Thanks again.

Answer

I really love the Q&A Forum section because this was a typical question I had, it totally made no sense. However, after reading the answers from Kwiziq it makes more sense now and I'm sure I will remember it better because of it. Reading the forum will now be mandatory and part of the lesson for me.

Thanks for raising this Daniel.