French language Q&A Forum

In the sentence 'Depuis la Révolution Française à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, l'architecture de Paris était restée essentiellement inchangée' why is the pluperfect 'était restée' used rather than the imperfect 'restait' ?

What about Guadeloupe?

I am trying to determine when to use 'emmener' and when to use 'amener' and to some extent 'apporter'.  All of the examples seem to imply that the first two refer to people, whereas 'apporter' refers to things.  Is that right?  Is there any guidance regarding the usage of 'emmener' vice 'amener' ?  Both translate to take or bring and in some contexts the meaning is lead.  Thanks.  

Hello,

When working with negation what is the easiest way to remember when to keep the indefinite article and not the definite article?

Example: can we do like I do not like meat nor fish since you can have some of the meat and some of the fish they would not keep the indefinite article correct?

Thanks

Nicole

Anique asked a question 12 months ago on this - I think the point of raising it was that although it can be deduced (or guessed) from the lesson, there is no reference or example in the lesson that covers 'la douzaine' or similar, other than 'etc' at the end of the title. It would be worth adding a line or two to cover this in the topic.

“We would gather at the … table”

translates to:

On se retrouvait à la table…

On se rassemblait à la table…

On se réunissait à la table…

How is the “would” in “We would gather” reflected here?  How is this different from “we gathered”, “we used to gather”, or “we were gathering”?

Same thing with “and we'd devour …” translating to “et on dévorait…”. 

The French imparfait seems natural here. Maybe it’s really the function of the English word “would” that’s confusing me when trying to analyse it. It’s the same word as the conditional “would”, but this is not conditional. It’s not the main verb, e.g. “to gather”. It’s almost like an English imperfect version of “to be”. 

Helpful comments welcome! 

I am being distracted trying to understand the underlining in a number of examples above (and probably shouldn't be, I know). Can't help but feel I am missing the significance - which I am if there is some!  The underlining doesn't coincide with le subjonctif passé phrase - the topic of the lesson. Is it just confirming all the examples need the subjunctive?