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Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert French teachers
14,721 questions • 31,894 answers • 972,173 learners
I just opened a french novel and the first line is: "Il ne faut pas que l'on nous voie." I searched for negative statements like this on Lawless and found the example here: "Il ne faut pas que nous mangions avec les doigts." So I guess putting the 'ne . . . pas' round 'faut' is correct. It seems strange to me as an Anglophone. If I were making this up, I guess I would say: "Il faut que nous ne mangions pas avec les doigts." Is that incorrect?
There are two sentences in this text using amener and emmener in ways I thought were more correctly expressed with emporter: Taking too many clothes along with mother, and bringing one’s dolls to bathe in the sea. We’re talking about objects here, either personal or something brought from one place to another. I suppose the dolls could be expressed with apporter, as they were brought to Lola, but why did you choose amener and emmener, which I’ve studied as being used only in reference to people, animals, or vehicles?
What is the difference between avoir du mal à and avoir du mal avec. I was marked wrong for avoir du mal à (math) but the lesson seems to indicate one can use either. Thanks.
I would like to know why the last phrase is in the present "c'est avec des larmes" when the rest of the text is in the past. I have seen the present used for obituaries, but on those occasions the present is used throughout the text, not just on one occasion. Est-ce qu'il y a quelqu'un qui peut m'expliquer?
Les mots "infirmiere" et "hopital" sont difficiles a comprendre avec cet audio. (a mon avis) Mais merci pour la dictee. :)
Thanks for trying to help Chris but I'm afraid it still doesn't clarify it. You said that it was asking for the present subjunctive in your 1st answer but in your second answer you say "The PAST subjunctive is used here to express that between" actions " 1) and 2) there is no temporal overlap. "
Perhaps if I ask it a different way
The English version is "Before I started to learn french". 'Started" is in the past tense, therefore shouldn't I translate it into the past subjunctive ie "avant que je n'aie commencé à apprendre le Français"
Thanks
The title of this exercise is "En segway dans le parc", but I was wondering why it was not "À segway dans le parc", as I understood "en" is used with forms of transport we get inside like en train, en bus, en voiture, en kayak and en avion; but "à" is usually used for forms of transport that we ride or walk without physically entering first e.g. à pied, à vélo, à moto and à cheval; and I thought segways would logically fit into the latter category?
Is there a list someplace for French verbs that are always followed by à?
I constantly make errors when a infinitive follows another verb. Sometimes the preposition 'de' introduces the infinitive as in "...decide de couper... " in the above exercise. Sometimes the preposition 'à' intervenes as in "intéresser à". Then there are verbs which take no preposition, for example "aller". Finally, we have an example using the preposition pour, as in "...insisted pour payer..." in the exercise. My question is "Are there patterns for these verbs or is it a matter of just learning by rote or just by listening to hundreds of conversations to remember the usage?" Thanks so much for your consideration.
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