French language Q&A Forum

Hi 

Is there much difference between 'le potiron' and 'la citrouille'?  

Thanks

This example makes sense, as we can replace Lucie et moi with nous:

Lucie et moi allons au cinéma tous les mercredis.

However, in everyday spoken French, most people use on for the first person plural as the conjugation is easier (eg: On va au cinéma), where the conjugation takes the form of the third person singular. Given this, can we also use the third person singular conjugation here? That is:

Lucie et moi va au cinéma tous les mercredis.

I know there's also a 'ne' littéraire where you can indicate negation while dropping 'pas'. This applies exclusively for a short list of verbs, like pouvoir.

If I were to see a sentence like "J'ai peur qu'il ne puisse le faire", would the 'ne' here be a 'ne' expletif or a 'ne' littéraire? In other words, am I afraid that he can do it or that he cannot do it?

I have another question about the use of passé compose with s’en aller. The text states: en will be before or after être: formally, it should be before, but in practice, it often ends up after.

Would the example Nous nous sommes en allés be better as Nous nous en sommes allés? It doesn’t seem to flow as well.

Merci!

...the exercise gives the translation of this sentence as 'We are astonished at his good marks' ...however, I don't see how you can tell the gender of the person with the good marks from this sentence...so surely the translation should be 'We are astonished at his/her good marks' ...? Unless you can tell the person described by the verb 'étonnons' ...but then I am sure this has no connection to the person being referred to in the sentence...

Look forward to your answer...