French language Q&A Forum

Bonjour,

Can I use des longtemps as the duration with pendant, ie, je vais vivre en france pendant des longtemps? Or is longtemps not considered a specific time frame?

Merci :)

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? 

The answer given was boissons fraîches. Is boissons froides wrong??

In the B2 writing exercise, occurs the following phrase: le Ministère a finalement confirmé ce lundi for: the Ministry finally confirmed this Monday. 

 If ce is a demonstrative adjective, this construction seems incorrect. I translated it as le Ministère l'a confirmé lundi.

The translation is

Martin hasn’t been here long. 

If the sentence is in le passé composé wouldn’t “depuis longtemps” mean “in a long time” and thus the translation would be “Matin hasn’t been here in a long time “?

Regards 

Catherine