French language Q&A Forum

In the writing challenge "My post-university plans" the sentence "I've heard that Isabelle is also going to try her luck in Paris." is translated as "J'ai entendu dire qu'Isabelle allait aussi tenter sa chance à Paris."

Why is "allait" used rather than "ira" or "va"?

"allait" seems to be translation for "was going", not "will be going" or "is going", yet the most likely meaning of the sentence is that Isabelle's action will occur in the future.

It seems that the explantion has to do with the fact that the sentence describes something already heard and therefore belongs to the past but the result is not intuitive.

In the 2 question quiz given at the end of the lesson a question asks "what does Qu'est-ce que c'est mean?" the literal translation is 'What is it that it is' which is given in the lesson. 

It should be more clear on what the question is asking for, the meaning or the translation.

Why is the sentence fragment "J'écoute du Beethoven" and not "J'écoute à Beethoven"? When would someone use 'écouter à' vs 'écouter de'?

In this story, “the weather was good the whole time” was translated as “il a fait beau tout le temps”. Why do we use the passé composé here, and not the imparfait ? 

I thought the best response might instead be “Il faisait beau tout le temps” as they were describing, or setting the scene for the story. (And also it was the continuous state of the weather without a set beginning or end). 

Although I can usually understand when to use the correct past tense now, occasionally one comes along that completely stumps me! Sorry for repeating a question asked a month ago, but I’d really like to know the answer.

The idicated translation is "dish."  In English, a dish can either be a plate on which food is placed or it can mean an entree.  I suspect that the meaning of "plat" is the physical plate on which food is served.  Can you verify?