French language Q&A Forum
Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert French teachers
14,670 questions • 31,813 answers • 964,710 learners
I'll be right with you...
Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert French teachers
14,670 questions • 31,813 answers • 964,710 learners
Bonjour,
I'm curious to learn why 'brun' is an unacceptable translation of 'brown' (as applied to hair colour), in favour of 'marron' which is just a particular shade of brown.
Normally, I think of using the preposition "à " when referring to a city. In this passage, they land in (à) Paris but they take the train to (pour) Florence. I am guessing that Florence is not an exception as a city but rather one takes the train for or to a city using the preposition, pour, instead of à. Is that correct?
I don't understand how you can distinguish eg 'Monday' from 'Mondays'. In the examples, there is a 'le' for both:
Le lundi est mon jour préféré - Monday is my favourite day
Je déteste le vendredi - i hate fridays
Bonjour tout le monde,
I just check the online linguee dictionary and found that there is adj for wind, it is:
venteux
So is it correct when I say:
Le temps est venteux?
Merci
Why is it "N'ayons" yet "ne sois pas" - i.e. one has the "pas" but the other doesn't?
The first refers to the nature of what you are inquiring about: is it a person or a thing? Qui est-ce… is for people and Qu'est-ce… is for things.The second refers to the grammatical function of the unknown person or thing in your question: is it the subject or the complement of a verb? …est-ce qui is for subjects and …est-ce que is for complements.Examples:
Qui est-ce qui fait X ? → Who is doing X?
The first qui indicates that you're asking about a person ("who"), while the second qui implies that the unknown person performs the action of the verb: this person is doing X.
Short form: Qui fait X ?
Qui est-ce que tu as vu ? → Whom did you see? or commonly Who did you see?
The qui indicates that you're asking about a person ("who" or "whom"), while the que implies that this unknown person is the complement of the verb "to see": the unknown person got seen, and tu is the one who saw them.
Short form: Qui as-tu vu ? (requires inversion)
Note that the English language requires (theoretically, in formal contexts) two different words to ask about people: Who = Qui + qui while Whom = Qui + que.
Qu'est-ce qui fait X ? → What is doing X?
The que (elided to qu') indicates that you're asking about a thing ("what"), while the qui implies that this unknown thing performs the action of the verb: the thing is doing X.
No short form in everyday usage.
Qu'est-ce que tu as vu ? → What did you see?
The first que (elided to qu') indicates that you're asking about a thing ("what"), while the second que implies that the unknown thing is the complement of the verb "to see": tu is the person who saw something, the unknown thing is what got seen.
Short form: Qu'as-tu vu ? (requires inversion)
Find your French level for FREE
And get your personalised Study Plan to improve it
Find your French level