Devoir in imparfait / passé composé In this exercise I got this tense wrong (as I usually do for the verb devoir). The linked lesson on this topic is misleading. It says that when devoir is used in the imparfait e.g je devais, it means I was supposed to do (an obligation, in most cases not met) whereas it has a different meaning in the passé composé where j’ai dû = I had to do, or I must have done (an obligation that was met, or a hypothesis on a past situation). This doesn’t seem to be correct in practice, where if it is a repeated action we would still use the imparfait.
For example, this week’s exercise asked us to translate “... that we had to develop (use nous)”. I put: “que nous avons dû développer” which is in accord with the lesson but was marked as incorrect, with one of the given options being “que nous devions développer”. Although I can see the logic in that, it appears on the surface to directly contradict what the linked lesson tells us.
(Interestingly, in the full text of the passage after the exercise, they used “qu’il fallait développer” which does get around this problem, but it is sort of cheating, as we were told to use “nous” when translating this particular phrase, haha)
Hello, I answered a questions that asked what the "Low Countries" were as "Les Pays-bas" which I learned in my French class, were the combination of The Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium. But the correct answer was The Netherlands event though the verb was "ont" and not "a" and the Netherlands is a single country. Could you tell me what the actual Low Countries would be in French?
Hi. The sentence refers to the past, so why 'car il fait chaud', which is the present tense, and not the imperfect ' car il fasais chaud'?
Cheers,
Pekka Järvilehto
Helsinki.
In this exercise I got this tense wrong (as I usually do for the verb devoir). The linked lesson on this topic is misleading. It says that when devoir is used in the imparfait e.g je devais, it means I was supposed to do (an obligation, in most cases not met) whereas it has a different meaning in the passé composé where j’ai dû = I had to do, or I must have done (an obligation that was met, or a hypothesis on a past situation). This doesn’t seem to be correct in practice, where if it is a repeated action we would still use the imparfait.
For example, this week’s exercise asked us to translate “... that we had to develop (use nous)”. I put: “que nous avons dû développer” which is in accord with the lesson but was marked as incorrect, with one of the given options being “que nous devions développer”. Although I can see the logic in that, it appears on the surface to directly contradict what the linked lesson tells us.
(Interestingly, in the full text of the passage after the exercise, they used “qu’il fallait développer” which does get around this problem, but it is sort of cheating, as we were told to use “nous” when translating this particular phrase, haha)
Which of these two is correct, or are both correct. I expected that #2 is correct but it seems the Kwiziq writing challenges expect only #1. I can see both in use elsewhere on the web but I only understand the reasoning behind #2.
1. " Le vent lui fouettait le visage"
2. " Le vent fouettait son visage"
Isn't le/son visage the direct object?
Isn't the use of lui implying that there is an indirect object?
But fouetter does not use indirect objects, does it?
Are we supposed to look at this as:
Subject: The wind
Verb: whips
Direct object: the face
Indirect object: (of) him
But why? There is no "à" in this sentence "Le vent fouettait le visage de Marcel", only a "de".
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