French language Q&A Forum

"Mais saviez vous que..."

I am a bit confused here.. why saviez and not savez? In English we often say "did you.." but that is a quirk and actually means "do you?" and it is heard as present tense. I see saviez as "did you use to know".. implying that you might have forgotten.. This is clearly an active question and I thought that French was more particular than that on its use of tenses.

Isn’t company “entreprise”? Thank you for answering. 

To get the meaning "listen to him" = "lui écouter". Is it appropriate?. Request clarification

Position of object pronouns in sentences with infinitives

 I am reading "Le Petit Prince" and noticed that sometimes, passé composé is used in the description (NOT the dialogue)  instead of passé simple. In simple sentences like "J'ai ainsi vécu seul" and "J'ai vu un petit bonhomme tout à fait extraordinaire". 

There are instances where you can (or *have to*???) use passé composé in literature? I can't find any pattern so can someone explain this to me?  

My best friend Pierre, who until last year shared a 2-bedroom apartment with me in Paris,

Mon meilleur ami Pierre, qui jusqu'à l'année dernièrer partageait un appartement de deux chambrtrois-pièces avec moi à Paris

Why can't I use l'annee derniere here?? the grammar doesn't explain! 

Thanks guys... can't do accents on this page

Are there any more examples you could give us? I used the direct object le with the apostrophe and it was marked wrong. How can we tell what word should be accented? Is ça always correct as opposed to le, la? In other words, are there certain times when the direct object must be before the verb or certain times when it has to be after the verb? Thank you.