“Would” causing confusion “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!
The answer choice inlcudes 'Aurelie only went to the market - and nowhere else' and 'Aurelie went to the market - and did nothing else'. Can you please explain why these sentences mean different things? Aurelie only went to the market. End of, surely?
“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!
There appears to be a disarrangement about "ressortir" between yourselves and Collins
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/conjugation/french/ressortir
Microsoft French dictionary agrees with you.
A problem ?
Hello, Here in Canada the usual translation of cinnamon is "cannelle" but I see in this exercise it is shown as "canelle" with just one 'n'. Can you please let me know if this is an alternate spelling or perhaps, a regional difference? Thank you in advance.
As always, your exercises and site are terrific and very much appreciated! :-)
My daughter had a quiz where she got « Pierre et tu allez au parc » wrong because it should have been Pierre et tu vas au parc. I am struggling to explain this. Is there a rule or an exception?
I was looking at the Lawless French article on inversion and saw that 'ainsi' may be followed by inverted word order. Does that mean that, as an alternative to 'Ainsi ma mère m'a raconté que', you could write 'Ainsi m'a raconté ma mère que...' ?
Hi just for further clarification, is it when the 'people' are anonymous and a group e.g les peuples, les gens, les acteurs etc etc can you use'en' to address them? And is it then only when people are named like Marie, ma mère etc etc that you have to use de + stress pronouns?
Hello, I hope you are well.
I'm just wondering when Italian will be added in 2023 (which month)? I have an exam and really would love to use Kwiziq to revise!
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