Recognizing the different tensesHello, I am a total beginner at French, and I hope someone can please guide me. I am having trouble recognising the different tenses when reading a sentence in French. In English we would say : "He READS a book" as an answer to a question like "what does he do whilst taking the tube?".
If the question was "what is he doing?", In English we would say "He is READING/ a/ this/that". How do I tell whether the person is DOING something or DOES something in French? Example :
"Elle lit un livre" She reads a book.
"Elle lit un livre" she's reading a book.
Initially, I thought you'd have to read the rest of the sentence to work it out, but I can't imagine this is how it works all the time. In English there is a distinctive difference : "I go to the .../I AM going to the..."
"He has a.../He HAD a..."
"I watch .../ I AM watching".
Have I missed something in the lessons?
Apologies for the long winded question and capitalisation. I like to believe I am fluent in English (it's the only language I know) however I find articulating in my own language difficult at the best of times !!
Thanks
Bonjour ! Can you explain me how to use tiret (-) in writing numbers ? Merci !
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?
Hello, I am a total beginner at French, and I hope someone can please guide me. I am having trouble recognising the different tenses when reading a sentence in French. In English we would say : "He READS a book" as an answer to a question like "what does he do whilst taking the tube?".
If the question was "what is he doing?", In English we would say "He is READING/ a/ this/that". How do I tell whether the person is DOING something or DOES something in French? Example :
"Elle lit un livre" She reads a book.
"Elle lit un livre" she's reading a book.
Initially, I thought you'd have to read the rest of the sentence to work it out, but I can't imagine this is how it works all the time. In English there is a distinctive difference : "I go to the .../I AM going to the..."
"He has a.../He HAD a..."
"I watch .../ I AM watching".
Have I missed something in the lessons?
Apologies for the long winded question and capitalisation. I like to believe I am fluent in English (it's the only language I know) however I find articulating in my own language difficult at the best of times !!
Thanks
Nous t'en ferons une
Nous te la ferons.
Which one is right?
Can anyone please clarify? Thanks in advance.
Hello,
This is the sentence I'm talking about: He was sick all day yesterday.
This is why I'm confused:
a) It could be imparfait because I believe that when you talk about health, you use the imparfait.
b) It could be passé composé because you know the time-frame of when it (him being sick) took place: all day yesterday.
These both talk about a specific time periods. "the morning" and "that evening". How do I distinguish them? I am struggling with this distinction.
Merci d'avoir écrit cette histoire palpitant! Plus, svp!!
Bonjour Laura, merci pour l´exercise,
je voudrais savoir si j'ai compris bien cette expression, "un peu de soleil" est idiomatique aussi.
Merci d´avance¡¡
how do you type a circumflex - I looked this up and it said control-shift, the symbol above the 6 and then the letter. That didn't work
This is more of a general grammar question, but I don't see how the sentence "She will get a refund." is in the same family of sentences as all the other examples. Why is it not something like "She's having [her purchase] refunded"?
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