French language Q&A Forum

Petite question. Je n’ai rien trouvé concernant un doute que j’ai où le sujet dont on parle s’agit de plusieurs noms et avec quel mot on doit faire l’accord.

Exemple:  La liste des mots que j’ai apprise.  

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.”

I wrote

tres bon instead of trop bon?

Whats exactly the difference. Someone told me trop is rather used for negative situations.

please clarify

Hello, please advise why affreuse is in front of the noun. je souffre d'affreuses crampes

Thank you 

D’aussi loin qu’elle se souvienne: I get confused about the translation of ‘could’ in this context and had translated this as : ‘D’aussi loin qu’elle pouvait se souvenir’. Can you direct me to an explanation of when ‘could’ is not a tense of pouvoir but a subjunctive?

Sorry to add to an already long thread, but I have a feeling that when using "on" as informal "we" (rather than impersonal "one") I’ve seen "nous" used as the stress pronoun, not "soi". Is that right? 

Could you please explain the difference between toucher and toucher à? What do they imply? 

Please share some examples.

(For e.g., what is difference between - Ne pas toucher à mes clés!  &  Ne pas toucher mes clés! )

Admittedly, I'm more used to Québécois French, but the recording contains what has to be one of the oddest pronunciations of "ben" I have heard. I expect it to rhyme with "hein" or "en", but I swear the recording is closer to "bamme" than anything else. 

Am I missing something, or has my ear glitched? Please let me know.