French language Q&A Forum

The tense chosen for pouvoir in this case is the conditional, which to me translates as "would you tell..."  and not as "could you tell..."  I get this wrong a lot and I am aware of the lesson but still err in regard to translating could.  Help!

"Il avait même fallu que les autorités démentissent le canular". According to a conjugation guide I use, this sentence appears to use "démentir" in the subjunctif imparfait, which I think is rarely used today in French. Would it be better as "que les autorités démentent" (present subjunctive)? Or maybe "aient démenti" if a subjunctive in the past tense is needed here? 

Rex reminds Anna of her dog.

Rex rappelle son chien à Anna.

The English sentence nearly made my head explode :-), it seems really ambiguous to me. In this example it's slightly clearer because Rex and Anna are different sexes, but if you wrote:

Rex reminds Chris of his dog.

Rex rappelle son chien à Chris.

it becomes really ambiguous. I imagine it would be said by someone (say Bob) talking about about three other parties (Rex, Chris and a dog). It would be clearer if there was more context as to who or what Rex, Chris and the dog were, but as it stands it can be interpreted multiple ways. It's unclear to me if the dog belongs to Rex or Chris, and the meaning changes depending on whether Rex is a dog or a person. The sentence needs a bit more context to try and remove the ambiguity e.g.:

Bob said that his dog Rex reminds Chris of his dog.

It seems the French is less ambiguous in this case, and you need to be careful with translating the French into English.

Hi,

I had a doubt regarding this statement : 

Je pense que tu vendrais facilement ta maison.

Shouldn't statements with penser/croire etc only be followed by indicatif in the positive or subjonctif in the negative? In what cases can we use conditionnel? I would think this particular sentence should use vendre in the future tense. So:

Je pense que tu vendras facilement ta maison.

Please let me know.

Thanks and regards

Roopa

I am going to go and I will go seem the same in English. Can they be used this way in French? Is it a matter of preference?

The following sentence has the verb following 'que'. Is this OK?  

C'est ainsi que se termine cette histoire.That's how this story ends.
Shouldn't it be:C'est ainsi que cette histoire se termine.

I often find that if I have a lesson I want to retest on it won't let me & says:

"To kwiz this lesson again, save it to a notebook and kwiz against it until you have nailed it."

but when I add it to the notebook it then says:

"This lesson is already in your notebook. Go to your notebook now to kwiz this topic as many times as you like."

apologies if this has been asked before, but I did search & check the FAQ but didn't find anything.

many thanks  :)

Hi, Can you please help me with this?________ une clé. (I have found only one key.) Why "Je n'ai que trouvé" is not accepted as a correct answer? But Only "Je n'ai trouvé qu'" and "J'ai trouvé seulement" are correct. I checked the theory but I think "Je n'ai que trouvé" is also correct.

- Can I use "chez la teinturerie" instead of "au pressing"?

- Can I use "ce n'est pas grand-chose" instead of "ce n'est pas grave"?

- Can I use "de nouveau" instead of "encore"? Please walk me through this.

- Can I use "de secours" instead of "en réserve or de côté"?