French language Q&A Forum

The monster revealed sharp white canines. I had to guess, wrong, since I had no idea nor could I find it anywhere online whether canines is masc or fem. What’s a good source for checking word gender when it’s not obvious? The lesson doesn’t address this of course. Thanks. 

Bonjour - i'm confused as to why this is tierce instead of troisième.  The lesson stated that tierce is used for fractions or portions and troisième is used for rank or order.  A third party witness sounds like a ranking/ordering to me, and not a fraction or portion.

Would appreciate clarification.

Merci

Is this also used if you want to use "before I'd do that" in a sense of "I'd never do that". I don't know if this makes sense, I mean like "I'd die before I'd do that". Or would that be a hypothetical clause?

I have read the lesson and the questions and answers below.  From what I can tell, Leila finit sa soupe tres vite should indicate in passe simple that Leila finished her soup very fast.  The lesson indicates that the context of the question should indicate which tense is being used; there is no apparent (to me, at least) context that would suggest that she is finishing her soup quickly (present tense rather than passe simple).  To have given both answers suggests that we should use both because each is possible, which confuses me.  I've read and re-read the answers and I'm still not entirely certain that I understand the logic here.  Please help!!

In the text the English phrase "It is going to be great" is rendered in the proximate future as "ça va être sympa".

I understand why this is correct, but I'm wondering would French people ever use the simple future tense here instead?  Something like "ça sera sympa"?

Thanks,

Stuart

Bonjour,

In the sentence from the lesson which reads-

“Vous allez aux Etats-Unis.” Here the acute accent on ‘E’ is missing .  Should it not be as “États-Unis”?