French language Q&A Forum

I believe that “I arrived the day he left” refers to a non-specific timeframe and therefore should use the feminine form, but it was marked wrong on my test and the masculine “la jour” was said to be correct instead. Can someone explain to me why this would be the case, or if it’s an error?

This explanation doesn't explain why sometimes one says 'L'hiver' and at other times, 'En hiver', and similar for other seasons.  The examples given do not enlighten me much.  I have always had trouble with this.  At first I thought, oh, you use 'l'hiver' when you are going to say something describing a feature of 'hiver', and 'En hiver' when you want to say something happened during 'hiver', but then the other examples given in context of other seasons etc mostly described activities occurring during the season regardless of the 'en' or 'l'' beginning.

I need it stated explicitly what the rule is, there doesn't appear to be one.

Unlike some comment leavers on this page, I *adore* the passé simple and I find it extremely useful.

That probably has a lot to do with the fact that I enjoy reading French history and literature. (For example, Les Trois mousquetaires is an amazing romp !  Much better in the original French than in any English translation that I've seen.)

I would be hopelessly confused in my reading without a solid understanding of the passé simple (to say nothing of the passé antérieur and *all* the tenses of the subjonctif) !

Different people learn French for different purposes. All the purposes are legitimate, in my view. It's a pretty big website, and I support the principle that the lessons should cover as much of la langue française as possible.

That said, I would be grateful to have more coverage of informal French. When I watch movies, I often find myself at a loss to understand what is being said by one character to another, even though I have a pretty good command of C1-level formal French. Maybe mine is a minority interest, but I just want to mention it.

In any case:

Great site! Many thanks!

This lesson needs some real sentences to demonstrate how to use the expressions.

Example "Add a liter and a half of water" = Ajouter un LITRE et demi d’eau" but "Add a liter and a third  of water" == "Ajouter un litre et UN tiers d'eau".  Sentences along these lines. I apologize if there is another lesson showing this. If there is it should be linked.  Note also I am confused by the inconsistency of online translators with the above examples..

Additional difficult sentences " One third of  students had a passing grade" == "Un tiers des étudiants ont obtenu une note de passage" OR " Un tiers des étudiants A obtenu une note de passage"??? I have seen both.

Really don't understand why the waterpolo is faire du versus jouer au. There is a ball involved, n'est pas?

Bonjour

Can one as an alternative to "deux sucettes au caramel" write "deux sucettes caramélisées"? This is in line with phrases like "porc salé" and "bouillon aromatisé".

Or, does "deux sucettes au caramel" imply lollipops that contain pieces of caramel compared to "deux sucettes caramélisées" that implies lollipops with a caramel flavour?

Can you explain grammatically the construction if this phrase?  I get that it means "we got home from school", but it seems unnecessarily complicated.  Could you not say "nous étions retourné de l'école"?

Why do you say mangées and not mangé, since it's "Anne a mangé"?

Thanks in advance:)