French language Q&A Forum

Je rends souvent service à mes amis- what does it mean? Can you explain, please?

In the phrase, "...il faut défendre ses opinions", why do the French use 'ses'?  I would have expected 'vos', i.e. it is necessary to defende YOUR opinions.  Is it simply the way the French express this allusion to others?

The English translation "I'm washing after you got up" is grammatically incorrect. You're essentially saying "I'm doing this after you did that", which makes no sense in English. The proper structure would be "I'm washing after you get up" (I'm doing this after you do that") or "I'm washing after you have gotten up" ("I'm doing this after you have done that").

This is one of the most frustrating things in studying any language, when you see a direct translation given that you know is grammatically incorrect (even if it is understandable by somebody who's fluent in the language that the sentence is being translated into) instead of a transliteration that makes more sense.

Why is the translation for crois think?  Wouldn’t pense make more sense? Thank you!

I have seen both of these being used, but I'm wondering if there is a semantic/pragmatic difference between the two e.g:

Il me faut partir

Il faut que je partisse.

Do these two convey a different idea, do they express different levels of formality, or are they completely interchangeable the only difference being that the former option takes less time to say

The tittle of the passage is 'A quoi ça sert de trier ses déchets' is translated as what is the use of sorting our waste? Our=notre / nos? and ses = his / her / its? Please help understand if the translation is correct?

hi,

After reviewing the positions of adjectives is it correct to say that the sentence un extremement vieux parchemin would fall under the category for 2 or more syllables for the word extremement?

merci

nicole

Does French follow the same linking verb + adjective convention as in English? Linking verbs, which include "to feel", link the subject and the predicate so are followed by adjectives, not adverbs. In the kwiz, there was "Je me sens mieux." I feel better. Of course, "feel" can be a transitive verb also as in "feel an object," so a person can feel (it) better, in which case "better" is an adverb. 

Punctuation isn't mentioned in the dictation so should not be counted in the score (feedback from my year 11 students).