French language Q&A Forum

j'aurai reussi ma vie - i will have had a successful life. Other examples of reussir have 'a' and 'de' after it on reverso. Why doesn't it need anything here? And one other thing, I'm asking quite a lot of questions and I always tick the 'get an email notification button' but I noticed just now that I have had two answers on this page, but I was not notified. Is this a glitch?

je suis grand et un peu calme

"Bonjour

Can you please clarify for me why the answer on 1 of the questions - see below - contains "de" before the adjective and noun?

"Ta soeur et ses amis ont de jolies poupées."

I would have expected "des" because "poupées" is plural.

Is there a lesson that explains this use of l/le? I see it a lot, but I don't fully understand when it is needed and when it isn't needed. 

Another problem I have here is with the explanations in the lesson. It says that when talking about SOMETHING SPECIFIC, you should use elle/il. But then there's this example: Qui est Sylvie ? - C'est ma sœur. 

I would think that here we are talking about a very specific Sylvie, and not just some Sylvie. Then why do we say c'est instead of elle? 

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