French language Q&A Forum

I have come across uses of le conditionnel passé avec devoir where the meaning appears to lean more towards “would have” than “should have”.  Par exemple “les alertes auraient dû sauver des vies”, by the context of the article could have been interpreted as a praise of the alert system as opposed to criticising the fact that the alert system did not do its job. Alternatively, it could mean criticism of people for not taking notice of the alerts. So, does “ils auraient dû + infinitive” always mean “should have”, or is there some subtle shading of meaning? 

Hey! Why in the examples is it  "j'ai de chance" and not "J'ai de la chance"?

hello.  i think this is very misleading of you again with regard to aller plus infinitive..

you ask :  how to translate : he is going to sell his motorbike.

i would naturally want to use aller. so, il va vendre 

but then you write [ to sell ] 'vendre' in le Futur Proche.   strongly suggesting you want us to use the future tense of vendre.

but no, the answer you give is il va vendre, not the future tense of vendre but the future tense of aller.

this is very confusing.

If je converts into j' in certain words such as j'aime and j'habite because of the vowels and silent h, then why doesn't nous become nous' in the same words like nous'aime as 'aime' also starts with vowel 'a' before them?

Hi there,

I was wondering if someone could explain a little more in detail why we use the present tense in the following example:

"Depuis que je suis toute petite, tout ce qui est français me fascine."

I think I kind of get it for the fascination piece, but not the "since I was little".

Thanks!