French language Q&A Forum

I've a feeling I've been here before in another dictée ! I thought that it was the number (singular)[of vowels] that was present. I can't get my head round why "présentes" agrees with "de voyelles". If "de voyelles" weren't there, it would read, "..le nombre présent au tirage." "The number" is still something singular, however many things it might be encompassing, surely ?  

What am I missing here?

I can't seem to differentiate these two. Please make me understand.

How do you remember which countries/regions are masculine/feminine? I find this hard.

My question concerns the imparfait conjugation of the verb 'exister' in the sentence:

Aussi, lorsque j'ai appris qu'il existait un musée qui...

I would like to know if conjugating here in the imparfait (existait) does not imply that the museum used to exist, but no longer does.  I am inclined to want to conjugate 'exister' in present tense to get around this problem, yet I know its gramatically incorrect to do so. If someone can help, I would greatly appreciate.

Have a good day all :)

Nous nous émerveillions toujours devant les champs de fleurs sauvages qui avaient tout juste commencé à éclore après l'hiver. 

Merci mille fois!

can you ever use 'depuis' without que, ot only if it relates to time... depuis ce matin, il pleut?

When looking around on the internet, it seems like "Retourner" is used here and there, both informal on message boards and formal on shopping sites (for example H&M website: "POUR RETOURNER UN ACHAT EN LIGNE"), for indicating returning an item.

Could you elaborate on this and why you write "Retourner never means to return (something) in the context of a shop for example." ?

Why couldn't I say "as voulu" for "why did I want a dog?

I note the possible answers were "Retirer de l’argent / Retrait d’argent / Retrait d’espèces". I do realise retirer is a verb and retrait a noun, but wonder why the change to d’  after retrait? (rather than de l’argent, des espèces)

J'ajouterais « se rejoindra » en plus de « se retrouver » et « se réunir ». :-)