Clairez-vous s'il vous plaîtSo, in all literal senses, the way to further describe an item's purpose is to pair it with the action being done with/upon it. ( i.e. une planche à voile = a [ plank ] to be flown [ surf ] upon ) That is odd to say the least, but French grammar seems to be very similar to archaic English grammar. I suppose the Norman invasion is to blame for that, n'est-ce pas? When the aristocracy speak one language, and the peasants speak another, I suppose they found a nice halfway point between the two, which then evolved into modern English, a confusing tangle of rules, exceptions, and counterrules, all presided over by 5+ official institutions.
French is much nicer. The rules are odd, but fairly consistent. It is managed by the Àcadémie Française , and no other, has considerably less mixing, and is only truly messed up in Créole French [ The pitiful excuse for French the people of Louisiana speak ]. So even if I had to traverse the entire french-speaking world, I would find little more than dialect ( i.e. Quebècoise, Guiyanaise, Walloon, Langues d'Occitan et d'Oeil . ) Bíen faites, francophones!
e.g.) not only is it sweet, it's also sour!
Why is "it" in this sentence "la" instead of "le:" Tu ne la lui écris pas.
So, in all literal senses, the way to further describe an item's purpose is to pair it with the action being done with/upon it. ( i.e. une planche à voile = a [ plank ] to be flown [ surf ] upon ) That is odd to say the least, but French grammar seems to be very similar to archaic English grammar. I suppose the Norman invasion is to blame for that, n'est-ce pas? When the aristocracy speak one language, and the peasants speak another, I suppose they found a nice halfway point between the two, which then evolved into modern English, a confusing tangle of rules, exceptions, and counterrules, all presided over by 5+ official institutions.
French is much nicer. The rules are odd, but fairly consistent. It is managed by the Àcadémie Française , and no other, has considerably less mixing, and is only truly messed up in Créole French [ The pitiful excuse for French the people of Louisiana speak ]. So even if I had to traverse the entire french-speaking world, I would find little more than dialect ( i.e. Quebècoise, Guiyanaise, Walloon, Langues d'Occitan et d'Oeil . ) Bíen faites, francophones!
For the very first sentence, I used "formidable" instead of "excellent" and this was not accepted as correct. Is this word out of fashion? Or just used in certain contexts? Thanks for your help!
In the example they sound exactly the same. I know you are going to say that context will let me know if it is "hers" or "theirs" but when you are not proficient it can be quite confusing, n'est-ce pas?
Is it correct that "du" in this very specific case is contracted to " d' " in front of a vowel, rather than the regular "d l' "?
I think it would be useful pedagogically to tie faire exprès de to the english express in the sense of express intent
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