French language Q&A Forum

Wish we could delete these rather than having to leave a '.' in the submission or otherwise fill the space, like this!

Surely étonner works for surprising Maman?  I would have thought it would, if anything, be a better choice?  Merci!

I'm being very picky with the punctuation here (but then again the little robot is often very picky about my punctuation, especially in the dictations haha). In the first sentence there should be a comma (and not a full-stop) in between "un petit déjeuner différent" and "ce qui peut rendre les matins un peu compliqués". (The corresponding English sentence did have the comma here.)

Hi,

I did yesterday's 'fill-in-the-blanks' exercise entitled, 'Un projet de voyage en famille' which consists of putting verbs au futur simple. 

Kwiziq dinged me for writing, "Les filles se bronzeront à la plage pendant que je nagerai." Kwiziq wanted, "Les filles bronzeront à la plage ..." ; no 'se'. 

When l checked dictionaries, l found that some included 'se bronzer' and some did not. Which is interesting.  And,  two key French dictionaries validated 'se bronzer' as being a valid option for 'to tan' : Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie française (online) and Larousse, https://www.larousse.fr 

I wonder, might some consideration be given to adding 'se bronzer' to Kwiziq's database? Thanks.

Could someone please clarify the rule for choosing between à laquelle and de laquelle in a sentence such as: 

"The girl I'm thinking of is Isabelle." : La fille ________ je pense est Isabelle.  "

I understand that they both translate "about/of whom" but they are not interchangeable. 

Thanks in advance!

Kalpana 

  Elderly Brit here. I would use the English past perfect in both halves of a sentence like  "By the time I had finished eating, he had drunk a whole bottle" - when he’s drunk the bottle, I’ve already finished eating, a completed action.

Without wanting to split hairs, is the concept of the French "le temps que" slightly different to "by the time that" or does it just take (to my mind!) a less logical tense?

Just when I think I might have that French partitive sorted out, I fear not!  

" un petit pot adorable de la confiture à la framboise."  My thinking was that the container was named, "un petit pot" so why not "de confiture..." ?!

The difference is the same as in English: une glace de marrons -- an ice cream made from chestnuts (the main ingredient is chestnuts)

une glace aux marrons -- an ice cream made with chestnuts (chestnuts are not the main ingredient)    

This nuance wasn't clear from the lesson above. How does one distinguish 'from' versus 'with' in such cases?

Les deux armées ________ longuement.

The two armies look at each other for a long time.

"se regardent" was marked as the answer and "se regardent pendant" as wrong. IK don't understand why both are not acceptable.

the answer "Non, vraiment, ça ne me plaît pas du tout !"

should it not be "Non, vraiment, ça ne me plais pas du tout !"

?