French language Q&A Forum

It pulled me up (incorrectly) on my spelling of oignons with ognons.

Bonjour, 

pourriez vous me dire la différence entre «au cas où besoin», «au cas du besoin» et «en cas de besoin»?

merci d'avance

Not complaining, but I wonder if you could explain why sometimes the "your answer matched mine" differs from the version in the text on the final page? For example I had "nous apprenons de nouvelles choses chaque fois que nous le faisons !" marked correct but it becomes "à chaque fois" in the full text at the end. And several times my answer is red-pencilled but then is given as a possible alternative. Does this reflect later editing of an exercise or mean maybe that my answer was ok but not the best?

I've encountered this quiz: translate this sentence: "Marie worked for ten hours yesterday". The answer excludes this option: Marie a travaillé en dix heures hier.

Why can't I use the word "en"? It's mentioned here: En vs Dans with time (French Prepositions of Time)

"En expresses the length of time something takes to be done."

Just to make the point that in UK English, it’s commoner to say "nowhere I’d rather be" or "nowhere that I’d rather be" - this avoids the where-where sound but also makes it harder to remember we need nulle part où rather than nulle part que.

I was wondering where we are supposed to place these constructions within sentences and clauses. Some translations show after the entire clause or sentence, some show after the verb.

- Nous les avons tous les deux vu(e)s

- Nous les avons vu(e)s tous les deux

- Lui et son frère sont venus tous les deux 

A general lesson about saying 'both' to describe people and objects should be made.

I  believe the explanation in the Q&A for using the present tense in place of a conjugated verb should be part of the main lesson as opposed to surfacing in the Q&A as it is an important exception to the general grammar rule and subject of the lesson.

Is there any difference in meaning/nuance/register between

'Ce magasin est fermé de deux heures à deux heures et demi'

and

'Ce magasin est fermé entre deux heures et deux heures et demi'? 

I think I tend to use the latter more often, and I'm now wondering whether it's incorrect, or makes me sound odd.