French language Q&A Forum

Are there times when you say "de les" instead of des? For example, in this sentence ... Ils essaient de l'atteindre dans l'arbre afin de l'empêcher de les manger versus Ils essaient de l'atteindre dans l'arbre afin de l'empêcher des manger??? Thanks for any feedback.

The above question linked to this page, though it’s not one of the examples given (can’t find "il y a longtemps" elsewhere on the site)

It’s translated as "This story happened a long time ago" and I’m wondering why it’s not "a very long time ago", or is "très" needed for the distant past?

Given the sentence: 'Gwoka combines music, singing and dancing' to translate I used 'allie' which I did consider as a synonym to 'combine', yet it was marked as a mistake...
I am confused though, was it really wrong?

Confused by the use of "Lui" in "je LUI ai fait faire sa valise" and "je LUI ai même bandé les yeux" as they both don't use "à"? Or am I mistaken?

After reading the page: "Is this English Correct", which I found to be very informative and interesting, I have a question regarding some examples given:

"Tom's family are farmers" and "Tom's family is wealthy."

First of all - what a great example of the ambiguities of this particular grammatical issue! And, I agree that both of the sentences sound correct to my native american ear. 

Given that "la famille" is singular in French, I would assume that the adjectives would also be singular. 

"La famille de Tom est agriculteur." and;

"La famille de Tom est riche."

Both of these phrases sound right to my ear. 

I suggest that adding a few examples such as these to the lesson might be helpful. It would underline how the adjectives are singular in French with the singular noun, even when we might use the plural in English. ("Tom's family are farmers.")

Merci !

And while we're on that question, the correctEnglish option, you decorated your flat, is not available. You did decorate your flat is a bizarre emphatic response to a conversation that goes something like ' Who  decorated your flat?' 'We did' 'Oh, I was told it was done for you. So you did decorate your flat.' It's such an odd thing to say it's hard to construct a piece of fiction to illustrate it.