French language Q&A Forum

Why is She had eaten all the cake! wrong for Elle a mangé tout le gâteau!".. 

.. in English it is something that has happened.. an event and does not demand the plusvque parfait.

Bonjour Madame Aurélie,

While doing a test named “Conte de fées” I landed up at a mysterious sentence -

Le père était àgé et sortirait rarement de son lit, alors sa fille devait s’occuper du jardin et des animaux.

Here I would like to ask you why a dû was marked incorrect although the English translation specifies ‘so his daughter had to take care of the garden .....’ . I read your lesson which states that one uses Passé Composé for an obligation that was very well met. And here too is the same case.

The link to the test -

https://progress.lawlessfrench.com/my-languages/french/tests/take/2581800

Please help me to figure out the correct option as I am not very clear with this concept.

Merci d’avance ! 

Bonne journée!

The following appears for translation: I'm happy she got her exam.

I am 72 year-old English speaker since birth and living in the US. I have no idea what this sentence means. Does the question writer mean to say "I'm happy she took her exam" or maybe "I am happy that she received her exam (perhaps in mail?)". 

Ok, maybe I'm being a little facetious. It's January in Indiana and I'm going stir crazy....

Be that as it may, no native English speaker would ever say this. I think this calls for some rethinking. Maybe the question writer is going quietly mad in Vermont, or worse, Chicago.....

The answer provided is "C'est Marc Dupré."

Why? I would have thought the answer should have been "Il est Marc Dupré." 

Is this a special case when using c'est? Use it for stating a person's name?

Why not use de la?

J'habite aux Saudi Arabie. C'est vrai? 

hi.can I use " dans" to  say" J' habite  dans Layon"

Instead  of "à"

After I learn about the subject pronouns prepositions and nouns what would be the next thing to learn? 

Any suggestions?

Monsieur Dupont, vous vous êtes trompé.

Why do you use être here instead of avoir. Shouldn't it be 'avez'?

A French national suggests that DURANT emphasizes the such and such occurs/occurred from the very beginning of the time interval to the very end, while PENDANT does not. This seems to be the difference between "I spent the entire week doing such and such" versus "I did such and such during the week."

If that it is the case, there may be value in adding that to the lesson. I have noticed BTW that DURANT appears in conversations much less that PENDANT, perhaps because of the nuance cited above.