French language Q&A Forum

in america, If you say "I took my exam" it means you were present. It does not refer to passing. If you took the exam and passed, then you say, I passed my exams. But you cannot say, I took when you received a pass or fail or grade. 

in america, there is no such thing as "i will lay the table" that literally means you are making or forcing the table to lay down. but you would not do that to an object, nor would you phrase it that way because a table cannot lay down, it stands and does nothing else. i am finding a lot of phrases that are difficult to translate because of this. i have also sought help with french speaking friends who have helped me and when i provide the answer, the platform says i am wrong and reverses the answer. such as the case with adjectives position before or after. 

Hello, is there a way to mark exercises in some way so you could query the marked list, just like we can do with Notebooks for lessons?  I have some dictees and writing exercises to which I want to return, but I don't know how to do that other than writing the names down.  If not, it would be a really nice feature to add.

I came across ‘je ne pense pas qu’ils auraient reussi à s’arracher à lui s’il était revenu.’  (Harry Potter translation).  Although penser when negated takes the subjunctive is the subjunctive not used when a conditional tense is needed? I guess I’m not sure whether tenses change the use of the subjunctive. I read the future changes to the present to us the subjunctive. 

this is frustrating. where does it say "jour" as in day? how are we supposed to know its St Julien Day and not a destination called St Julien?

Thanks Céline for yet another well thought out exercise.   I really appreciate the rich, diversified vocabulary with so many roots that are common to similar English words.  The recognition that approximately 40% of French words are the same or almost the same has allowed me to expand my French vocabulary.  There are at least a dozen examples in this story.  Sometimes, I just guess by constructing an unknown French word from an English word.  It mostly works!  Best wishes.

How can it be "le repas de la Saint-Sylvestre"? Sylvestre was a man as I understand it?

Would de la confiture de framboise be a possibility rather than de la confiture à la framboise?

Thanks in advance

Je ne comprends pas le jeu. Je "click" sur the M, par exemple, mais rien ne se passe. J'essaie de le faire glisser jusqu'à la boîte, mais encore, rien de se passes. Peux-tu m'aide? Merci

I did a small double take with this question because the English "He’s been to" is a past form of "he goes to" not "he is ". You can say "he was in France" but with a slightly different sense, more vague and without any emphasis on the going (UK English ). Perhaps this is my blind spot, but it isn’t a French construction I’d met before so I’d like to know if it’s a. common and b. idiomatic /informal?

(Apologies for reposting this question from a week ago: it’s gone from Q and A and wasn’t answered. Maybe the Helpdesk removed the post because I queried a similar sentence "On a été faire les courses = We went shopping" in a passé composé exercise.)