French language Q&A Forum

Hi, there’s a typo in the hint “HINT: we = Bastien and his granddad”. It should be “grandad”.

Bonjour Kwiziq Team,

I completed a question on your website: Aurélie ________ avec sa soeur.

I was trying to decide if it should be "s'est disputée" or "s'est disputé". I thought it would've been the former, since Aurélie is a girl. But I remembered stumbling upon an article about Le cas de non-accord which said:

Le participe passé ne s'accorde pas lorsque le C.O.D. suit le verbe.
Exemples :
- Ils se sont lavé les mains. (COD "les mains" placé après le verbe)
- Ils se sont écrit des lettres. (COD "des lettres" placé après le verbe)
- Ils se sont réparti tous les billets. (COD "tous les billets" placé après le verbe)

Hence, I selected "s'est disputé"" which turned out to be the wrong answer. Can someone explain why? Is it because "sa soeur" is not a C.O.D. and if so, why not?

Thanks very much for all you do! 

I realize this has come up before but it doesn’t seem there’s been a satisfactory answer yet: Why is only “On peut toujours trouver plus fort que soi” and not also “On peut toujours trouver plus fort que soi-même” correct? 

in this sentence from  a roman policier La salle des meurtres by Phyllis Dorothy James 

L’appartement, qui donnait sur Kensington High Street, arborait l’ordre excessif et impersonnel d’un logement préparé pour la visite de nouveaux locataires. L’atmosphère était un peu confinée ; bien qu’occupant un étage élevé, Dupayne avait pris la précaution de fermer ou de verrouiller toutes les fenêtres avant de partir en week-end. 

Here  bien que was not followed by subjonctif ! is that correct ? and would you replace it by bien qu'occupant un étage élevé, Dupayne ait pris la précaution .....

Just checking, the number of minutes are written out in full in all the examples - is there ever a situation in French where numerals are written instead? eg 23 instead of vingt-trois.

Ok, I should have heard the "la" but I didn't - and I put "le mi-août" because août is masculine. Is it, then, the case that if you use the prefix "mi-" the whole thing ( "mi-qqch") invariably becomes feminine?

I was a little confused, as it suggested using the simple past tense, but also uses the past historic...something I need to make sure I understand in terms of the context!

Two questions: 1) Why Elle aime écouter DE la musique, but J’adore regarder la télé (no de)? My French textbook, Les verbes et leurs prépositions, does not seem to make this distinction, but does not give an identical example. I also found a source that states that  Écouter la télé and Regarder la télé can be used interchangeably, suggesting the verb isn’t the issue, but to me the nouns are similarly indefinite. 2) In the negative, would it be Elle n’aime pas écouter de musique? Thanks in advance.

On peut aussi dire "du pont Saint-Martin"?  Quand est-ce qu'on utilise "depuis" (from)? Ce sont des synonymes?