French language Q&A Forum

What are the different usages of habiter and vivre

J’ai bu une demi-bouteille.

J’ai bu la moitié de la bouteille.

Nous n’utilisons qu’une moitie du sac de riz.

Il mange qu’une moitie du biscuit.

Can someone explain in a different way from the lesson... which basically says they mean the same.

we use "soirée" in the sentence CETTE soirée s'est très bien passé which translates to "THAT EVENING" , even if we consider it to be a duration and not a point in time ,isn't there a rule that when we use demonstrative adjectives(this, that etc. ) we use quantity words like jour, an, soir etc.  

Hello - 

I'm still confused about why "Nous nous habillions à 6 heures et demie", "We got dressed at half past 6", is imparfait and not passe compose. This seems to be one specific event (not describing a repeated action), is complete, has a clear beginning (6:30), and isn't an opinion or (I don't think) story background. What rule would I use to know it's imparfait?

In a French blog that I was reading, I came across a lot of "qu'apprendre". For example, "beaucoup de Français pensent qu'apprendre un langue..." or "beaucoup de Français trouvent qu'apprendre l'anglais..." or even "études ont monté qu'apprendre une langue étrangère" - so I assumed that if "que + verb" then the verb would be in the infinitive. But I could not find this confirmed by lawlessfrench.com. Could someone clarify if que + verb require the infinitive? 

- Merci! 

When using avoir as the auxilliary verb in the passe compose, I thought that the past participle had to agree with the direct object... so in the previous exercise there was:

"Nous avons nouri nos chiens" ...are not les chiens the direct object of the verb in that sentence?

"il a fini ses devoirs" ...are not les devoirs the direct object of that sentence...?

...I guess I have got something very wrong here... grateful for any guidance...

Michael 

When using avoir as the auxilliary verb in the passe compose, I thought that the past participle had to agree with the direct object... so in the previous exercise there was:

"Nous avons nouri nos chiens" ...are not les chiens the direct object of the verb in that sentence?

"il a fini ses devoirs" ...are not les devoirs the direct object of that sentence...?

...I guess I have got something very wrong here... grateful for any guidance...

Michael 

To avoid having listening to the whole segment again just to try to catch the syllable or two that you can’t quite get. Maybe upload these to YouTube, which provides this function natively. 

Hi there, can anyone suggest a rule that works for making a liason between words pronounced...? Not as simple as before a vowel as I have found in the above examples:

"Nous sommes allées..." (liason pronounced between sommes-allées...)

"Pauline a dit Je suis allée en France..." (no liason pronounced between suis-allée...)

"Ils etaient meilleurs amis..." (liason pronounced between meilleurs-amis...)

Grateful for any tips on a rule that works...

Michael 

Hi, in the last paragraph the text reads “l’incompétence du capitaine”, but I’m actually hearing “l’incompétence du commandant”.