French language Q&A Forum

While expressing present continous tense or future simple with present tense in french, I realy get confused on when to use auxiliary etre with subject pronoun and when not to use 

Yes “finissait” is the right answer here, but the verb “terminer” is more appropriate here.

Why in "tu" form the conjugation changes "Regarde-lui", but not "Regardes-lui"?

Whereas in "nous" the ending is the same "Arretons-lui"

That example doesn't make sense to me, if they are referring to the duration of time they spent in Spain, then why use an instead of année ? Even without the need of emphasizing the amount of time they spent in Spain, wouldn't the usage of année be required anyways due to the rule stating that you should use it when considering the amount of time in it's duration ?

Bonjour - J’ai remarqué que l'homme de gauche a utilisé le passé simple deux fois (“et ce fut une défaite cuisante” et “notre équipe obtint . . .”).  Est-ce qu’il est courant d'utiliser le passé simple en parlant ?  Est-ce parce qu'il parlait de faits historiques ?  Merci !