French language Q&A Forum

If you wanted to say "You are not going to drive me...", would you say "Tu ne me conduis pas..."?   

I am aware that this has been discussed before but it is clear to me that in certain cases “passer une année” can be used.

For example, on the web page https://acupoffrench.com/french-grammar/an-vs-annee-2/, which also explains when to use “an” or “année”, there is the following example with passer and année used to stress the duration:

“Elle a passé quatre années à chercher un travail.”

So I think it would not hurt to explicitly mention this possibility to use année instead of an to stress the duration. 

For the general case (not just related to passer), I think the rule from “Advanced French Grammar”/Monique L’Huillier section 5.2.1 an/année is clearer than the “time unit” vs “duration” distinction: “an usually follows cardinal numbers, whilst année follows ordinal numbers, or an indefinite or demonstrative adjective”.

This rule does not hold for jour/journée, soir/soirée and matin/matinée and these cases  are treated separately in the book.

This rule is then followed up in the book with “If the year is modified in any way, “année” should be used” with the following examples.

“J’ai vécu à Londres pendant cinq ans.”

”J’ai gardé un très bon souvenir de mes cinq années à Londres.”

Quel est le genre grammatical de 'Paris', et pourquoi pas 'à la campagne' au lieu de 'dehors de la capitale' ?

Although this wasn't an advanced exercise, I found it somewhat challenging and learned some new phrases, (such as "casser votre tirelire; au fil des annees; and s'enticher de). 

But, I have some questions:

Why not "a ete etabli..." for "a ete fondu..."?

"Beaucoup d'artistes mondialement connus sont restes..." for " De nombreux artistes de renommees mondiale ont sejourne..."?

"...Ernest Hemingway est devenu enchante par..." for "s'etait entiche de, etc...."?

"et le bar du Ritz porte maintenant son nom" for "et le bar du Ritz porte aujourd'hui son nom"? (which actually translates to "and the Ritz bar carries his name 'today'" or "is 'today' named after him").

And, for "the fairy-tale like hotel, why not, "un hotel qui ressemble a un conte de fees"?

Merci beaucoup pour votre reponse !

Referring to “vous adorerez cette autre idée : modifier un pyjama en flannelle défraîchi.”

for

“you will love this other idea: making alterations to a pair of faded flannel pyjamas.”

I can only find “flanelle” (one “n”, not two) in the dictionaries. And this is a female noun. So should these answers all be “…en flanelle défraîchie.”?

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