French language Q&A Forum

The text reads “Tant mieux, car je n'ai même pas encore commencé à râper le fromage”, but there’s no “même” spoken in the audio (Cécile has confirmed this to be the case in the Q&A). 

The text just needs a small correction. 

Where the lesson says "Both mille and un millier de are followed by a plural verb (sont venus)", am I correct in saying that this only occurs when these adjectives are modifying the subject? The rule is listed after a number of examples, some of which have the adjectives as part of the object/ with no verb following). Let me know if I'm missing something. Thanks!

Hi when I create a notebook I'm asked if I want it to be made public or not. Where can I find these public notebooks?

Thanks, Jeramy

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 😀

Could 'allons-y et payer' also be used or is this a set phrase? When else do verbs get stacked like this? 

… isn’t it?

Avoir besoin de. Avoir envie de. Devoir. I try guessing by picking one or two or three depending on the activity and invariably get it wrong. I think your explanatory text needs more clarification, especially in the use of avoir envie de as an option for ‘need to’. Thank you for your time.