French language Q&A Forum

Good morning. Is there a trick to hearing the accents over vowels, or do you just have to know where they are in every word? A lot of times I can distinguish the pronunciation of é vs. è, but sometimes I can't tell the difference between e and é, for example. In the text, there's the sentence "" where I can hear é in représentation and théâtrales, but the e in spectacles sounds the same as é in the other two words and doesn't have an accent. Is this something that just comes with a lot of practice? Or do you just sort of need to know the words in advance? 

Can you help me to understand when to use use y ane le/la to refer to something that has been talked about before, for example

1) Tu as vu ma message ?, tu  y as  répondu ?

2) Je pense d'aller à Paris, tu le penses ?

What pronoun could work for  a mixture of life genders as a collective pronoun :They(John and Mary) are eating.

Is there any list of nouns before which indefinite articles don't change in negative form? 

Not sure if anyone is gonna read this, but for those that are from countries where a billion means a million million, french uses the word billion as well. 

This page confused me a bit since Spanish is my first language and in that language we generally use billion the same way as French, whereas the one thousand million meaning is mostly used in the English speaking world.

Hi Kwiziq

I utilise many different resources to learn French (including Kwiziq) and at least 2 translator apps - Reverso and French English Translator which check my French words and grammar to verify my learning, before I speak, write or read.  However, I often find these 2 apps give me different answers for the same phrases.    In this particular Kwizik test, I became frustrated because some of my answers were marked incorrect, despite my research before taking the test.  

Do you have any suggestions on which translator is the most reliable and one that Kwizik recommends?   I am a Premium Kwizik member and enjoy your model of teaching, however, I need to find a reliable translator.

Thank you.

Regards Jo

Is the distinction the same as in English, where "the coffee" is specific to a particular coffee in the current context? And "coffee" without the article is talking about coffee in general?