French language Q&A Forum

Bonjour!

How best to translate this sentence please? : "Were you there before?" - Etais-tu là avant? (or) As-tu été là avant?

and the same sentence in the negative: "Weren't you there before?" - N'étais-tu pas là avant? (or) N'as-tu pas été là avant?

Thanks.

Cheryl

we use aller in future proche 

is it the only conjugation used in future proche ?

I'm a little confused because I was under the impression that when you talk about something in general (not a specific thing), then you use le / la / les

For example, "Les trains sont grands" = Trains are big.
Not any one particular train, just trains in general. 

In my latest quiz I was asked to translate "Aurélie eats bread." 

To me that is a general statement, we're talking about bread in general, not any particular loaf or piece of bread. In the same way you could say "I don't eat meat". So I put "Aurélie mange le pain", but this is apparently incorrect and instead should be "du pain". 

I would have thought "Aurélie mange du pain" would translate to "Aurélie is eating some bread", no? 

Thanks