French language Q&A Forum

hello, 

i know the verb écouter takes a direct object and in the example above (Je n'écoute jamais le prof) it's rather obvious. in another lesson however, there's an example like (tu n'écoutes jamais Alice).. my question is: how can i tell the meaning of the sentence, i mean when i read the example i thought someone is saying to Alice that she never listens, not the actual meaning of someone is saying to another that he\she never listens to Alice!

"Elle va au marche" i always thought that if there is a vowel right after like va and au that we abbreviate?

Until 1974 the English of translation of 'un milliard' would have been one thousand million (otherwise known in English as 'a milliard'), an English billion being one million million. The Americans being more inclined to exaggeration used Billion to mean 1,000 million, this has now been generally accepted throughout the world. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion for more background