French language Q&A Forum

Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert French teachers

14,774 questions • 32,012 answers • 980,890 learners

Ask a question

Find your French level for FREE

And get your personalised Study Plan to improve it

Find your French level

CrystalMaiden 7.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

" le chien - les chiens " The sound clip's saying a whole lot more than just that.What's she actually saying betwen le chien and les chiens?

Asked 7 years ago

Like0Answer1

Alison R.A1Kwiziq community member

J'adore vs. j'aime vs. j'aime bien?

Can you give me some idea of the relative strength of these? I was showing an apartment (I'm a broker) and the French client used "j'adore" to refer to the countertops... which confused me. To an English speaker, "adore" seems like a cognate, but in English we generally wouldn't say "I adore these countertops" -- that would likely come across as either 1) over-the-top or 2) sarcastic.

Does "j'adore" better translate as "I really like" or "I think these are cool/great"? And is it equal in strength to "j'aime"?

Asked 7 years ago

Like0Answer7

steven l.B1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

A useful acronym

An acronym that I like to use is BANGS, which stands for beauty, age, numbers, good/bad, and size.

Adjective relating to these categories usually come before the noun. If you compare this to the list of adjective in the lesson above, you'll see a lot of them fit.

Asked 7 years ago

Like2Answer2

D. A.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Comment on dit "The cat misses me" Je manque au chat?

Asked 7 years ago

Like0Answer2

CrystalMaiden 7.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

va-t-il What does the -t-il mean?I know now that it means " does he go, " but the average person reading this wouldn't know that. -T-il is perhaps the most confusing thing about French question-making. What does the -t- even mean? Can't mean tu or te judging by the context, so why's it there? Just for phonetic reasons, like the l' in si l'on? This should really be explained in the lesson, what -t-il means.

Asked 7 years ago

Like4Answer4

steven l.B1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Follow up question

For some reason I can't reply to a specific response, so I'll have to post this as a seperate comment.

This is a follow up question to Laura's translation of "She ought to really stop seeing him", which she wrote as "Elle devrait vraiment arreter de le voir." I'm wondering if the phrase "Elle devrait vraiment s'arreter de le voir" is also acceptable.

Asked 7 years ago

Like0Answer2

Jaap S.B2Kwiziq community member

In this lesson, the placement of "bientot" is different. Is this interchangeable? Nous aurons bientôt une nouvelle voiture. Ils auront 20 ans bientôt.

Asked 7 years ago

Like0Answer3

Cheryl N.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

B2 writing challenge re. a relative pronoun used

Bonjour!

Once again, (toujours!) I chose the wrong relative pronoun. I wrote "ce que" in the B2 writing challenge, as I thought "that" referred to the fact that it snowed last night (a whole idea, not just a noun). The correct answer was "que". Below, is the correct sentence from the exercise:

Il a tellement neigé la nuit dernière (it snowed so much last night)

que le jardin était (re)couvert d’un épais manteau blanc (that the garden was convered with a thick white coat)

Can someone please explain why que is the correct answer in this sentence, instead of ce que?

Amicalement, Cheryl

Asked 7 years ago

Like0Answer4

nim t.A1Kwiziq community member

differnce between -ant and -er/-ir/-re

Hi,

since using the -ant and the infinitive both mean -ing in english, what's the difference between them and when would you use one and not the other?

Asked 7 years ago

Like1Answer3