French language Q&A Forum

D'abord, ils ont pris des feuilles de papier rouge, orange et jaune,

I'm struggling to see why rouge and jaune are singular. 

I know it is correct, for example : des feuilles de papier blanc = white sheets of paper.

Can anyone explain with a simple rule?

I think basically the point is the colours agree with the material, (papier= unaccountable, singular noun in this context), not with the "sheets".

Is there a general rule I can apply , perhaps about en/de + a material ?

I'm guessing it's something like this:

When describing what an object is made of, it is always treated as a singular noun ?

Thanks, Paul.

This is a really comprehensive lesson. Cécile even provided a list of words beginning with "h" in the comments above but included only nouns and verbs. It would be great if you added a list of adjectives beginning with "h" so we can see which ones follow which rules for "tout" all in one place. 

Are the baby names inherently masculine, or do they have female counterparts too, such as un chiot --> une chiotte; un chaton --> une chatonne etc?

Hi can someone tell me the different meanings between these two sentences

elle n'a embrassé qu'Alexandre

elle n'a qu'embrassé Alexandre

and in an example given at the top of the page why the meaning was not explained within brackets like the other examples above and below it.

Nous n'avons regardé qu'un film.Should it of said Nous n'avons regardé qu'un film (and watched nothing else)

In being asked to complete a phrase beginning 'un' and meaning 'a kind of talent' why is 'genre de talent' marked wrong? Is that not what it means? The dictionary gives une sorte , but un type is also possible. If you want us to translate the english 'a certain talent' , which is I think wat the French means and is certainly different from ' a kind of talent' which is rather perjorative, perhaps that's what you should ask us to translate?

Bonjour,

Please confirm, are we saying that the hyphen is only used between numbers and never when 'et' is involved?

Merci