French language Q&A Forum

Over the last few days I have powered through over all the A0 topics in order to get them out of the way and get to study A1 or better lessons,yet for some reason it feels like I am on a loop right now, where all the lessons on my study plan are A0 ones even though all of them are 100%'d already, I even got the award for achieving a 100% completion on a level. Is there any way to get Kwiziq to stop giving me these lessons and get it to give me A1 ones ?

I hope it’s OK to pose a vocabulary question - at first I took this to mean the dog has taken the person’s food, but today I came across a module in Duolingo (apologies...) translating "croquettes" as "kibble", ie dog food. Is that the intended meaning?

Hi!

I don't want the tips that appear in the fill-out-the-blanks exerceises. Can I choose to turn them off?

Thanks for any help! :)

For some verbs like passer, monter etc there's a rule: 

When a verb is followed immediately by a noun (as opposed to a preposition), it uses avoir as the auxiliary, like most verbs.

But in the book « Les verbes et leurs prépositions » (by Jean-Michel Robert, Isabelle Chollet) there's a note for the verb convenir:

Le verbe convenir se conjugue avec l’auxiliaire avoir lorsqu’il a le sens de « plaire, être appro­prié à », avec l’auxiliaire être lorsqu’il signifie « décider ensemble ».

So I'm confused. What would be the right choice in the following case?

1. La date que vous m’aviez proposée ne m’a pas convenu.

2. La date que vous m’aviez proposée ne m’est pas convenue.

From the one side, here convenir means « plaire, être appro­prié à », therefore it shoud be conjugated with avoir.

From the other side, there's no COD here: "La date" is the subject and "me" is COI, so être should be used.

In "la surprise n'en sera que plus grande" why "n'en sera que" rather than "ne sera que"?  The lesson says en can replace the preceding de+phrase but I cannot see de+phrase.

I find the questions which ask things like "If I say "Tu es français.", who am I speaking to: Lucie or Hugo?" quite frustrating, because the gendering of names isn't fixed.  According to https://madame.lefigaro.fr/prenoms/prenom/garcon/lucie, Lucie, whilst predominantely feminine, has been a mixed name for over a century. 

I think this is more a question about the use of lui, but there are some examples here that use it. Ils rient avec lui, pas de lui. They laugh with him, not at him. 

How do we know lui is HIM and not just him/her without any other context. Do I just take the translation for what it is, or am I missing something fundamental? I find this to be so confusing. Thank you. 

Bonjour,  la cinquième phrase a le mot “départments”. Qu’est - ce que c’est, un départment? Pourriez - vous m’éxpliquez? Merci beaucoup.

In the last sentence, "Exactement Yvan ! Prenez votre temps et restez détendus !", the adjective détendus is plural; the previous comment was directed at Yvan.  I would expect the singular détendu if the comment is directed at Yvan.  Another interpretation is that the comment is directed at both Yvan and his friend or perhaps others in the group.   It is a bit ambiguous.   Do you agree?