French language Q&A Forum

could you use lit matrimonial instead of lit double?

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?

How would you write "Question of the Day"? For example, each day my french class starts with a "question of the day". I've been using jour but now I'm worried I've been incorrect.

I don't have the best ears, but I do not hear beaucoup after t-shirt.  I hear "au contre" instead.

The last sentence "Je vois encore son sourire quand je l'avais surprise." I thought toujours would be better here as “encore” is more often used to describe something that's not going to last much longer, or something that's been repeated. “Toujours” expresses the fact that it's something frequent, or something very long (in this case, he will likely not forget her smile for a long time). 

Could you explain why we use encore here? 

I was definitely listening to this exercise in French but the answers were shown in English with various options provided.  That's not how this usually works, unless I've been drinking too much eggnog...

Now, l just have to read Les Fleurs du Mal. So inspiring. The bohemian in me recognizes that in Baudelaire. 

As we encounter these amazing writers, it strikes me that it would be useful to learn the use of the passé simple and the passé antérieur and possibly other now more literary tenses in the subjonctif.  I realize that most people don't speak that way anymore. Yet l wonder, if l were to read Baudelaire, might l  not encounter those tenses? 

Another current example: l listen to France Inter. They recently aired a fabulous 8 part podcast on Simone de Beauvoir. So l am now reading Mémoires d'une jeune fille rangée, which is liberally sprinkled with the Passé simple and Passé antérieur. So no sweat, l figure it out; the vocabulary she uses is actually more challenging than her tenses. So here is a woman writing in 1958 who is very current today in fact, when it comes to feminism, she is still central source material. Thanks for considering this suggestion.

PS: The funniest thing! After first writing this l  took a study plan test in which 4 out of 10 questions required the passé simple! So my information that you do not teach such tenses is clearly wrong ... or out-dated. Please feel free to not respond to my suggestion if my basic assumptions are wrong 😀

I found one of your recent posts awhile back and now I fully understand it. It helped me a lot and now i'm hoping it will help me do better with the tests.

thanks again

Celine