Enthusiastic support for the passé simple.Unlike some comment leavers on this page, I *adore* the passé simple and I find it extremely useful.
That probably has a lot to do with the fact that I enjoy reading French history and literature. (For example, Les Trois mousquetaires is an amazing romp ! Much better in the original French than in any English translation that I've seen.)
I would be hopelessly confused in my reading without a solid understanding of the passé simple (to say nothing of the passé antérieur and *all* the tenses of the subjonctif) !
Different people learn French for different purposes. All the purposes are legitimate, in my view. It's a pretty big website, and I support the principle that the lessons should cover as much of la langue française as possible.
That said, I would be grateful to have more coverage of informal French. When I watch movies, I often find myself at a loss to understand what is being said by one character to another, even though I have a pretty good command of C1-level formal French. Maybe mine is a minority interest, but I just want to mention it.
In any case:
Great site! Many thanks!
Est-ce que la mère de Sophie trop protectrice de sa fille à cause de "son divorce d'avec Papa"? Sinon, la phrase me confond.
Regarding this sentence:
Marie, quelle idée fantastique tu as eue
Why does the past participle eue agree here? Is it the case of the subordinate clause with que?
Should the sentence be:
Marie, quelle idée fantastique QUE tu as eue
In the example, “Achète-t-il des pâtes?”:
“achète” technically ends in a vowel but it ends in a T sound, right? So why is the extra “t” necessary?
Unlike some comment leavers on this page, I *adore* the passé simple and I find it extremely useful.
That probably has a lot to do with the fact that I enjoy reading French history and literature. (For example, Les Trois mousquetaires is an amazing romp ! Much better in the original French than in any English translation that I've seen.)
I would be hopelessly confused in my reading without a solid understanding of the passé simple (to say nothing of the passé antérieur and *all* the tenses of the subjonctif) !
Different people learn French for different purposes. All the purposes are legitimate, in my view. It's a pretty big website, and I support the principle that the lessons should cover as much of la langue française as possible.
That said, I would be grateful to have more coverage of informal French. When I watch movies, I often find myself at a loss to understand what is being said by one character to another, even though I have a pretty good command of C1-level formal French. Maybe mine is a minority interest, but I just want to mention it.
In any case:
Great site! Many thanks!
The sentence:
-J'aurais donc besoin de partir d'ici vers 4 h du matin.
Could the future simple be used equally here?:
-J'aurai donc besoin de partir d'ici ver 4 h du matin.
This was a question in one of the quizzes:
Il m'a offert une boîte ________ bijoux pour ranger mes colliers.
The lesson re the above clearly states that “If it/ he/ she is followed by a determinant you will use c’est.” Why then, after taking Lucie’s temperature does the doctor say, “ Elle est un peu élevée” and when taking her blood pressure, “Elle est un peu basse”? I can understand why he would say “Elle est élevée” or “Elle est basse” but surely the given answer contradicts the rule.
Why wouldn't this be "une variété...a fait"? It's "variety" that is the subject of the sentence, and not the prepositional clause "of programs," is it not?
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