Can someone please help me figure out why the correct answer to "Savez vous . . . s'est passé" is "ce qui" and not "qu'est ce qui se passé"? I thought the latter meant "what happened?"

Thanks!

Asked 3 years ago

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Cheryl N.C1KwizIQ Q&A regular contributor

de or à between verbs, please?Below are examples of French sentences from a kwizik quiz: In the first sentence, is there a rule to follow please, so I know to put de & not à between the conjugated verb refuser & verb lever? Speaking English, you would not say "refuse OF to lift", so I'd want to put an à, (if anything). No. 1: Les voleurs refusent de lever les mains. (The thieves refuse to raise their hands.) The 2nd sentence below, why put anything between matinée & écrire please? Doesn't écrire mean writing as well as 'to write'? The "à" already has a presence..!? The same point for sentence No. 3 below. The à is already contained within the infinitve form of the verb "espionner": TO spy. No. 2: J'ai passé la matinée à écrire. (I spent the morning writing.) No. 3: Elle s'amuse à espionner sa soeur. (She has fun spying on her sister.) Hoping someone will please shed some light..or rule.. about how to know which word to use: de or à, & why we need to put anything here at all ? Cheryl

Asked 9 years ago

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AurélieKwizIQ Head of French, Native French Teacher

Johnny asked: "How come "Comment cela se fait" is wrong?"

Bonjour Johnny !

"Comment cela se fait que ... ?" can indeed be used by some French people, however it's grammatically incorrect as the way to construct the elegant form is through the use of the inversion "-il", and NOT cela.

You can also encounter "Comment cela se fait-il que ... ?" which is simply redundant, as it literally means "How come this that ...?"

However, given the fact that some people do use that incorrect form, I decided to change our marking to Half Correct, as we still aim to teach the correct French ;)

I hope that's helpful!
À bientôt !

Asked 9 years ago

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