French language Q&A Forum

Questions about this topic, using the lesson examples:

Il a mangé de magnifiques gâteaux

He ate some magnificent cakes.

J'achète de beaux draps

I buy nice sheets.

Note that when the adjective is placed BEFORE a plural noun, the partitive article des (some) becomes de (or d' in front of a vowel or mute h). 

ATTENTION:
This rule doesn't apply when des is the contraction of "de + les" (= of/from/to the) :

J'ai acheté de nouvelles bottes

I bought [some] new boots.

My question is:  how is the 3rd example actually different from the previous two? How do we know that it would have be “de + les” and that they would not? Why wouldn’t they also have that option?

Merci  à l’avance!

Je ne comprends pas le temps que ca lui prend de se preparer ! Is an example given to illustrate when l'indicatif is used and not le subjonctif. That I understand but I find the the sentence interesting and would like to ask :  1. Could  que ca lui  be replaced by qu'elle prend ?  and  2. Could que ca be replaced by celui que ?

In the "après que" lesson, should the above example read instead 

             Après que j'ai vu ce film, j'ai été bouleversé.

in order for the tense  to agree with that of the  main verb as indicated? 

Of course, " j'étais bouleversé"  sounds closer to "I was overwhelmed" 

If the answer is no, what is the difference in meaning between the two "options"?

Thank you,

Anna

Si seulement nous tous étions aussi sages comme ce papa !