French language Q&A Forum

Il y a des fleurs partout.

Négation : il n'y a de fleurs nulle part.

Ou - il n'y a pas de fleurs nulle part.

Aussi 

Je fais du jogging. Négation : je ne fais pas de jogging ou je ne fais pas du jogging.

Dans cette phrase, est-ce que du est articles partitives ou contractés ?

my answer was correct yet it was marked wrong 

I found I had more difficulty with the punctuation that the words! A lot of English writing increasingly drops commas these days, and it might be helpful to know the French rules! For example, I wouldn’t put a comma before "in Spain" in the first sentence.

She seized his wrist is translated.."Elle lui saisait le poignet."  Why is the "lui" there?

It's a pity that once we submit our responses to kwizes that are sent to us by email, we don't get to know where we made mistakes. Perhaps may I suggest that the incorrect answer be indicated in bold red colour or underlined to identity it?

For example,

My score for the Saint Patrick's Day kwiz was 13 correct and 1 incorrect. I did it twice but I think I got the same error? Can you tell me where my mistake was?

My answers are below:

Ma grand-mère est irlandaise, donc dans ma famille on célèbre la Saint-Patrick. Le 17 mars, on accroche le drapeau vert-blanc-orange à la porte, et on colle des petits trèfles irlandaises sur les fenêtres.
Après avoir mangé le ragoût traditionnel de ma grand-mère, ma sœur et moi rejoignons nos amis pour faire la tournée des bars. Je mets mon chapeau haut-de-forme et mon tee shirt préféré avec un farfadet à cheval sur un arc-en-ciel, et ma sœur porte une magnifique fausse barbe rousse et a même un petit sac à main en forme de marmite d'or!
Toute la nuit, on boit de la bière verte en dansant des gigues endiablées !
Joyeuse Saint-Patrick à toutes et à tous !

I know there are lots of exceptions in French! Is there one hiding behind the breaking of the symmetry of taking off two letters and adding one when forming participles (-er > -é, -ir > -i, but -dre > -du, rather than the simpler -re > -u) ?

The last sentence is Elle n'en croira pas ses yeux!  Why is "en" used in this context?

If the verb is se passer, should it not be "Comment tes vacances se sont-ils passées" 

If the verb is simply passer, should it not be "Comment sont passées tes vacances"

Yes Paul. I agree with you. I never learned phrases like that in school. Would they be commonly used ie. Should I try to use them in conversation or would I get funny looks, haha?

This sounds like an opinion to me. I thought it should be in the imparfait. Could someone kindly shed light on this for me?