Imparfait vs Le Passé Composé for ÊtreCan 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.
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.
Why is it 'le musée du Louvre' and ' le musée d'Orsay'
If I follow the logic for le musée du Louvre, then ' le musée d'Orsay' should be ' le musée de l'Orsay'
I don't understand why the sentence to translate talks about my favorite colors (couleur is feminine), but then the colors are listed in the masculine form. And, the "title" of the grammar point says that colors agree according to gender and number.
I thought I understood this and that you have to base gender and number on the subject (first noun) as it was done here in the examples. So I would say, and have in fact been saying "Elle est plus grande que son frère" and "Il est plus grand que sa sœur".
Now I have a workbook that told me to write:
"Un village est plus petitE qu'une ville"---> Using the gender of ville, the second noun in the comparison, rather than the gender of village. That's wrong, right?
It also told me to write "Paris est plus grandE que Bordeaux". The only explanation for this I have is that they are "La ville de Paris/Bordeaux" here and hence feminine. Does that sound right?
I think it's time to recycle my workbook...
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