Q&A Forum

Why is encore not included in the translation as it would only mean he saw him the day after (not again)?

  À l’initiative d’alors Ministre de la Culture ….. can we say this instead of à l’époque? 

Dans la phrase "...donc je suis resté à la maison...", j'ai choisi "chez moi " au lieu de "à la maison".  Pourquoi est-ce que "chez moi" n'est pas correct ? 

Why can't I write "Ton père est dans la prison.?

I think "dans la" & "en" both work in this example. My reasoning is that prison is a physical place.

This exercise used the imperfect tense of pouvoir to translate the English word, could.  The French also use the conditional tense to translate could.  I am sometimes confused as to the correct choice when trying to translate could.  I searched the library for pouvoir and found lots of lessons regarding various tenses for pouvoir; however, I found none for the imperfect.  I am surmising that the use of the imperfect for pouvoir is appropriate in what I call "if I could-then I would" constructions. The if part would take the imperfect of pouvoir.  This is distinctive from a simple condition as in "Could you pass me the salt?", which I believe would use the conditional form of pouvoir.  I hope you understand my question.  I am simply trying to figure out when to use the imperfect form for pouvoir when trying to translate could.  Thanks in advance.

Elle ne le fait pas, bien qu'elle le puisse.

Why is it "bien qu'elle le puisse" and not "bien qu'elle puisse"?

Why is pouvoir in the phrase, "...but my parents told me that we can only keep one..." translated as "nous pouvions" rather than "nous pouvons" ? ie. The use of the l'imparfait rather than the present tense.

I know that we used "voulais" earlier in the sentence, but that was expressed as the past, "I wanted to keep...".  Does the use of the l'imparfait earlier in the sentences necessitate the use of the l'imparfait with "pouvoir" also?

Merci !

why does it have to be faire with aikido? why is joue a l'aikido wrong?

I was a little confused, as it suggested using the simple past tense, but also uses the past historic...something I need to make sure I understand in terms of the context!

In the first sentence, "...if you ended up alone on a desert island, and (that) you could only take one thing with you..." the french verb prendre is not accepted for take.  Yet in the third sentence,  "OK, if I had to take one thing I can't do without...", prendre is in fact usedfor take.  The context seems the same in both sentences.  Should not prendre be acceptable in the first sentence as well ?