French language Q&A Forum

My husband, who speaks French fluently, observed me agonizing over this en, dans, à, feminine / masculine countries, states, regions and cities and he laughed. He asked why I’m wasting my time memorizing trivia that won’t make a difference when it comes to having a conversation with a French person. He says nobody except a French teacher would give a rat’s ass if I made this mistake. It doesn’t prevent understanding or communicating.

The fact that I can’t advance to other lessons that will further my ability to communicate,  until I get this glitchy thing memorized, is very frustrating. It makes me afraid to even try to speak, for fear of making this kind of mistake.

In a recent test, the answer required was "mes parent aimeraient ce qu'on se marie" and the response "'voudraient'' was not accepted. Aren't either regularly used to mean "'would like?" I think technically the former is would like and the latter is would want, but that seems pretty subtle. For example, in ordering food "'Je voudrais avoir  . . . .''

I am just wondering why ´pressé is not in the infinitive after ´tu ne semblais pas pressé’?

Merci

Bonjour à tous !

 Yesterday I was chatting with friends and then, I entertained a doubt that I couldn't clear up on my own. Here's the dialogue of two of my friends:

- J’ai aussi acheté des pêches.

- Oui, elles sont très bonnes et populaires

L'Académie officially changed the rules on this a couple of months ago: https://www.france24.com/fr/20190228-academie-francaise-feminisation-langue-metier

As recently as 2014 they said the feminized forms (professeure, écrivaine, etc.) were "véritables barbarismes", but now their use "ne constitue pas une menace pour la structure de la langue"... They specify that the e at the end must never be pronounced though, so it's effectively just a spelling change.

if present tense is used for historical events, why use ‘La Fontaine est né’ and not ‘La Fontaine naît’?