French language Q&A Forum

Hi there Aurellie, I am just a bit confused about some aspects of this website. I love the way Laura teaches, but this is just really a bit of feedback which you have asked for in the past: I have lived in French speaking Switzerland for fifteen winter seasons...teaching in French, have done a primary school teacher qualification specialising in French and have passed some quite advanced grammer levels within this website system, yet it still baffles me by directing me from time time to quite a low level...for instance, how to say your name...? I can't see that I can have possibly got only 33% in this at any point...is it some kind of tactic of the website it wonder...? or just some kind of shortcoming...? ah well, just thought I'd mention it for feedback in case of the latter.

Best regards,

Michael  

pourquoi "inaugurera", c'est au futur ?

Bonjour à tous,

In translating the idea of the time it takes to do something, are mettre and prendre interchangeable?  Or are there specific situations for the use of each ? 

Thanks in advance. 

What is the difference between mal and malade? It looks like aller is used for mal and être for malade, but what's the difference. There's also "j'ai mal" using avoir, (not in this lesson). But given the context in comparison to this lesson, I'm guessing j'ai mal is used to say specifically where it hurts, but I'm not understanding the other two.

How is "it" "that"  this these and those written and pronounced in French?

"Plus de royauté, etc." Why does that mean "no more," w/out any grammatical indicator of negation, like "ne plus?"

If "ai" is pronounced as "e" what about "eu" "au" "aux" "œ"... ??

Bonjour Madame Cécile !

Sorry for asking another query on tenses but this is my last question to reassure my concept-

• Aussitôt que vous _________( ne pas se sentir bien),vous __________( prendre) un médicament. [ Fill with appropriate past tenses] { Le Passé Composé/ L’Imparfait/ Le Plus-que Parfait }

I find the following cases correct ->

1. Aussitôt que vous ne vous êtes pas senti bien, vous avez pris un médicament.

2. Aussitôt que vous ne vous étiez pas senti bien, vous aviez pris un médicament.

But I presume that the following case does not sit well after I plotted the actions on the timeline I designed ->

Aussitôt que vous ne vous étiez pas senti bien, vous avez pris un médicament.

What does the above sentence signify Madame ? 

It represents a situation where a person had felt ill and then he took a medicine and hence is inaccurate.

Je vous remercie du fond de mon cœur .

Bonne journée! À bientôt !

Depuis   It can only be used to express a duration of time that started in the past and still continues in the present, or "that both started and stopped in the past." Pendant can be used to describe something that happened in the past, or the future, with" no relevance to the present time". 

The above are excerpts from Todd’s answer below marked “correct”. Could someone please explain the parts within inverted commas that I find confusing. The definition of ‘Depuis’ states ‘the action is ongoing’. So, how can it have ceased in the past?  The other statement was relating to Pendant. The lesson explains that it could include the present too! 

Pourquoi faut-il parler si vite? C'est tellement plus difficile à comprendre.......vraiment!!!