French language Q&A Forum

I'm not sure how to post a follow-up question rather than a reply so I'm re-submitting this as a new question:

Many thanks Jim, that helps.  I got confused because the subject of the lesson is about adding même and then these two examples don't without any explanation as to why - or perhaps I need to re-visit the basics! So it's because he is talking of/about himself.  If he was talking to himself then it would be 'Il aime vraiment parler à lui-même' ?  Also, what if he was saying 'He really likes to talk of/about him' ie a third person - what would be the distinction?

…parce que il m’a conduit sur Wikipédia à lire un très long article sur la vie fascinante de Gauguin. Merci!

Hello! I was always taught that adjectives related to beauty, age, goodness and size went before the noun. I was wondering why the translation is “une toile monumentale” rather than une monumentale toile. Thank you!

The sentence to which I refer is, Géricault's masterpiece was directly inspired by the tragic shipwreck of the real frigate "The Medusa" in 1816, which fifteen people survived to in atrocious conditions: hunger, thirst and, worst of all, cannibalism.  I believe the correct grammar would be "... in which fifteen people survivied in ( or under) atrocious conditions...".  The translation to 'auquel' becomes more evident.

What's the difference between:

n'importe qui/quand/quoi/ou/comment

and 

peu importe qui/quand/quoi/ou/comment

The correct answer is 'I love him although he is a bit lazy', and not 'I like the fact that he is a bit lazy' but how would the latter answer differ from the example in French?

The phrase "C'est une recette" has a confusing pronunciation, just checking if it is correct?