French language Q&A Forum

a) Je dormais quand tu m'as interrompu OR b) J'étais dormir quand tu... In sentence b) is être redundant as the verb dormir can be used?  

In the test question: Le policier est descendu à la cave à la recherche de la bête féroce.

May I ask what the pronoun 'la' refer to in 'à la recherche'? and why recherche is not rechercher after the preposition 'à'?

If these phrases have the same meaning, as noted in the lesson, why was answer deemed incorrect?

Harlan Spiroff

Not sure if I am missing an easy way to do this but when a search in QandA is done, I can't see an easy way to link to the full discussion. For example, a common question on avoir besoin de and avoir peur de has been raised again. This was subject to a very detailed discussion just recently and short of scrolling through many pages, I cannot find it to link for the questioner. I can see Cécile's answer, but the rest of the discussion is not linked from there. If there isn't a way presently, is it possible to look at doing this? There are many discussions dating back years now that have lots of good information, and also discussions arising from the other exercises that are worth referring to. 

The question in the quiz read:  Le DJ est insupportable.  Tout le monde ______ pense.  Fill in the blank with y en le, etc.  So the answer is le.  As I understand you use le when it replaces a phrase that starts with que or and infinitive.  Where is the indication that I should use le?  Thanks.

in the expression j'ai peur de....the de changes with the object  j'ai peur des chats....what about avoir besoin de  or avoir envie de...those don't change?  Why?  Merci,  Bruce

Why is it  'le musée du Louvre' and ' le musée d'Orsay'

If I follow the logic for  le musée du Louvre, then ' le musée d'Orsay' should be ' le musée de l'Orsay'

It seems that with some adverbs formed by adding -ment to the feminine adjective form the "middle e" is pronounced and others not (example: lentement (not pronounce) and fortement (pronounced). Am I hearing this correctly? If so, is there a rule when to pronounce and when not to?

Thanks!

"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.