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Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert French teachers
14,995 questions • 32,507 answers • 1,023,255 learners
Alors, pourquoi utilise-on "avoir" au lieu de "être" avec courir, qui est un verb de mouvement?
Do non-reflexive verbs used in the past tense with a reflexive pronoun use être or avoir?
For example, if the above sentence "Les deux chiens se fixèrent avec méfiance" is put in the past tense, do we use être with the verb "fixer" (-->"Les deux chiens se sont fixées avec méfiance")?
Or, am I asking the wrong question? In other words, in French perhaps there is no such thing as verbs that are "non-reflexive." Instead, is it that case that any verb used with a reflexive pronoun automatically becomes a reflexive verb, which means the rule regarding use of être in forming the past tense applies?
How about "in the evening" or "in the morning" as a one-time event? I understand that if one does something every evening the term is "le soir" (Tu ne lis que le soir). But what if I'm referring to a specific evening, for example: On est partis tôt et on est arrivés à la maison (in the evening). While I'm asking, how would one modify that to express "early in the evening."
Above it says that with a noun it should be:
avoir besoin de/d' + (article) + noun
but then below it says:
Verbal phrases like avoir besoin de don't use the definitive article (or partitive article).
These seem contradictory. If I want to say:
"You need flour"
Do I say: "Tu as besoin de farine" or "Tu as besoin de la farine"
Could someone please clarify with respect to both countable and uncountable items.
In the four Texas examples above we have “Etats-Unis”. Should these all be “États-Unis”?
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