French language Q&A Forum

How  and when to use avoir beau 

This lesson doesn’t explain why sont isn’t necessary in the sentence: Ils brûlent tous. They ARE burning all the books. I got this wrong with no explanation as to why. Help? Thanks. 

<< Vous les montrez à mon père et vous ________ ensuite. >>

The answer is : << me les montrez >>

Why isn't  << les montrez à moi >> allowed in this case?

À ma connaissance, le mot juste est une calque sur français du mot « just » en anglais.  « Just » est un adverbe en anglais, mais je le crois un adjectif en français. Par exemple:  « ce que tu dis est juste » en français, mais on ne dit pas « je suis juste arrivé ».  One dirait « je viens d’arriver » pour éviter le calque erroné , mais je pense que « juste au cas où » est INCORRECT.   

Pourrait-on clarifier ce point de grammaire pour moi?  Merci beaucoup  

Dr Michael Elinski

What does one base on to add "du" "de la" "de l' "? ........ 

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?