French language Q&A Forum

1st paragraph, 2nd sentence:   saurez-vous retrouvez is translated as : "can you match"   --  can you say a little about how savoir in the futur is used in this case?

In the translation of ” and I'm skint [US: broke] because of all the gifts that I must buy”, they use the expression ”à cause de” for because of.  I was wondering if "en raison de" could be substituted for "à cause de".  I tried it but it wasn't accepted.  Is there a subtle difference that I don't understand? 

Hi. In a Kwiz this was the question:

Avant que je n'________ le bruit, je dormais à poings fermés.

The answer was aie entendu.

Can someone please explain the n' that's in there?

Je suis un peu perdu. Pourquoi la texte utilise 'souhaitez' et pas 'souhaiteriez'? J'ai vu que cette texte traduire comme 'What time would you like this call?' 

Hi,I'm doing B1 French and I generally understand the use of the subjunctive but got tripped up recently. The first example was " we want someone to guide us".  ..."on veut que quelqu'un nous guide'

Am I right on thinking the subjunctive is guid+e relating to "on" which is 3rd person singular and therefore guide+e. Of course the " on veut que" demands the subjunctive.

In the second example " He wants that we guide him," ( Il veut que nous le guidions), the Subjunctive ending is guid+ions  relating to "nous" which is 1st person plural therefore ends in "ions".

What adds to the confusion is that "on veut" is conjugated like "Il or "elle" but in informal use " on" can mean " we" which is "nous" in French.  I hope I have explained everything well ( and as an aside j'éspere is not a Subjunctive trigger in the affirmative but is in the negative) so you may see why it's so difficult sometimes. Any comments gratefully received.

Pour quoi il faut utiliser "bonnet" dans cette histoire? Est-ce que le mot "touque" et aussi acceptable? Je crois que "touque" est le propre mot pour un chapeau d'hiver en Canada.

My question is about:Que dessinent les enfants ?What are the children drawing?, given in the examples;Could you also say, "Que dessinent-ils les enfants?" ?

“On vous appellera quand on arrive” would be considered an acceptable, if casual sentence, as opposed to “on vous appellera quand on arrivera” which is a bit clunky, no?

I’ve just dropped a point for omitting the -là in the general statement "La vie était plus dur à cette époque-là".  Could someone clarify the distinction between à cette époque and à cette époque-là, as both seem to be found online, as well as in Céline’s answer two posts down. Thanks!

Plural subject (nous), a single (non-paired) body part for each person: why the singular for the body parts (la tête) and not plural? "Nous nous grattons la tête"