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Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert French teachers
14,980 questions • 32,491 answers • 1,020,819 learners
I was never good at grammar so it would be helpful if the lessons had a link to the very basics. Like in this lesson, a link to tell a poor grammarian what in heck is the subjuntive ??
I have read the answers above but it is still not clear to me whether there is any difference in meaning between bien que and même si (regardless of the tense following). Thank you.
I've been told that you should use "dans" when there is a roof, and "sur" when there isn't. So "on the bus/plane" is "dans l'autobus/avion" and "in the fields" is "sur les champs". Is this a good general rule?
Think this may have crept in accidentally?
I was doing an exercise about what in subject, the phrase was: Jacques est descendu du haricot magique". I translated it as "Jack climbed down the magic beanstalk" and the system told me that the correct answer was "Jack got off the magic beanstalk". Why?
I put the first as my answer to the question but was flip flopping between the two in the text box. Is the reason I got it wrong because there is no context to use "lui?" is there a context where "lui" would be correct?
thanks!
I did a small double take with this question because the English "He’s been to" is a past form of "he goes to" not "he is ". You can say "he was in France" but with a slightly different sense, more vague and without any emphasis on the going (UK English ). Perhaps this is my blind spot, but it isn’t a French construction I’d met before so I’d like to know if it’s a. common and b. idiomatic /informal?
(Apologies for reposting this question from a week ago: it’s gone from Q and A and wasn’t answered. Maybe the Helpdesk removed the post because I queried a similar sentence "On a été faire les courses = We went shopping" in a passé composé exercise.)
If s'inscrire (to register oneself) uses être as it's a reflexive verb, then why do we say "Le mois dernier, nous avons inscrit Thomas au judo" and not "Le mois dernier, nous sommes inscrits Thomas au judo" ?
Elles auraient eu un chien si elles avaient pu
They would have had a dog if they could have.
If I'm not mistaken:
auraient eu -> Conditional past "would have"
avaient pu -> Pluperfect "had been able to"
1. What happens to the rule about "Si" + imperfect in this case? Does it only apply to Imperfect + Conditional present?
2. Shouldn't "avaient pu" be something like "auraient eu"?
I can see why you could use the pluperfect for "They would have had a dog if they had been able to". But "... could have" seems to call for the conditional past (although I agree that the meaning is the same).
What am I missing here?
Thanks
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