French language Q&A Forum

I've always been confused by this: "j'aurai du" translates as "I should have" and not as "I will have had to...." but these are not quite the same, I think. "I will have had to catch the 22 bus" suggests that I did catch that particular bus, to achieve whatever, whereas "I should have" suggests that I didn't catch that bus, and perhaps failed in my intention. Similarly for "j'aurai pu" - "I could have" not "I will have been able".

Any advice/explanation appreciated!

If I want to say, "I hope that you are fine" in French, can I say, " J'espère que tu sois bien?"

Hi, can you explain why "I ate all the cakes" is not a correct translation of 

Nous étions en vacances lorsqu'ils nous ont cambriolés.

Would it not be " nous avons cambriolés'' here?

Can you explain how to decide whether to use imparfait or le passé composé for être? If I understand it correctly, imparfait is for past events of some duration or past states of existence while le passé composé is for bounded one-off past events.

Above is this example:

L'année dernière, j'ai été vraiment malade.

But if one was sick for most of the year, or even for some months, wouldn't it be:

L'année dernière, j'étais vraiment malade.

So, am I right in thinking the example sentence means something like "I had an episode of grave illness last year"?

Similarly, there is this example above:

Avez-vous été marié?

But being married is, except in extreme cases where there is a divorce immediately after the marriage, being married is an event of some duration.

So, why wouldn't it be:

Étiez-vous marié?

Unless the question is, simply, "have you ever had a marriage ceremony" (which would be a bounded event rather than a state of existence of some duration). But people don't really ask that.

Thanks for any clarification you can provide.