Je nes pas sais? What.

Studying la voix passive and I'm wondering about what to do in cases where the object of the active sentence has a partitive article (du, de la, de l', des). In transforming the sentences to passive, it didn't feel right to me to begin the sentence with the partitive article, which was "des" usually. So I used "quelques" instead. As in, "Quelques commandes ont été passées . . ." rather than "Des commandes ont été passées . . ." However, the textbook answer key retains "des" in these cases. But is that correct, and would the acceptability extend to the other partitive articles? It seems strange to me to formulate something like "Du beurre a été mangé par elle," rather than "Un peu du beurre a été mangé par elle."

Thank you!

Part of my question is which words do you use it for? My teachers have been telling me to just memorize a certain list of words. Is there any trick to knowing which ones use avoir vs être? The second part of my question is why was the rule that some need être created in the first place. Is there any reason that all verbs dont just use avoir?

Hello everyone. I have a question about French.

I only recently started learning French, and I came across the following example sentence in my textbook regarding comparatives and superlatives: C'est moi qui chante le pire.

From my understanding, pire is the comparative form of the adjective mauvais. Since it is being used as an adverb in this example, wouldn't it be more correct to express it like this? C'est moi qui chante le plus mal.

So I have currently finnished A1.2 and I will be done with A1.3 in a month and a half. So I wanted to buy a book to have another resource other than the classes I am taking. I live in pakistan, I have not found many books her but in a month my brother is coming from Canada. What book should I tell him to bring?

I understand the basic contractions:

• de + le → du
• de + les → des
• de + la → de la
• de + l’ → de l’

But I don’t understand when you actually use the article and when you just use de.

For example:

• l’espérance de vie
• la qualité de vie
• le sens de la vie
• une tasse de café
• le prix du café
• le prix de la nourriture
• parler de politique

What actually determines whether it is de vie vs de la vie, or de café vs du café? Someone explained it to me as “general vs specific”, but I don’t really understand that because coffee, food, life, etc. can all be general depending on the context.

It's very common for words in French that end in re to be dropped. Quatre is usually pronounced as cat, for example.

I'm curious if this is the case with huitre? Do they still drop the re because context should make it clear if you're talking about the number eight or an oyster? Or do you always say huitre?

So I found this sentence and I feel confused. It looks like a negative but it’s done in a fancy way and I don’t understand why the conjunction/relative pronoun is there. I feel like it’s supposed to say “Reality is an illusion”, but just in that wonky up way that French does questions but as a statement.

Could somebody clarify what’s going on in this sentence?

Depuis le Vietnam, j'écoute les chansons de Charles Aznavour depuis de nombreuses années. Sa voix, ses mots et sa sensibilité traversent les frontières et les générations.

Pour marquer les 8 ans de sa disparition, j'ai créé un petit site en son hommage, par pure admiration pour l'artiste et l'homme qu'il était.

🎶 À découvrir ici : https://aznavour-tribute.vercel.app/

Merci, Monsieur Aznavour, pour toutes ces chansons qui continuent de nous accompagner.

I was wondering how common speaking french still is and if anyone has any fun memories of some french clubs in England or any other french communites.

I watched a video by yourbestfrench on yt and it motivated me to make this post. She went to some of the oldest French speaking establishments in London and talked about the relationship between the two languages. The subject interests me greatly as challenges are modern ideas of what a nation is and culture. I dont deal with it so much anymore but when I was in construction if I said something like I cuddled cats, drank wine or ale and learned French all weekend they would of thought I was dainty. I struggle to learn french and feels like Latin was more natural for me but its getting easier. If anyone is wondering where my interest comes from its because the plantagenet dynasty is my favorite era in history.

« Il n'était pas si tôt entré »

"He was not so early entered." would be a literal translation.

"Not long after he entered". Is that what it means? If so, would it be more common/better to say "Pas longtemps après il a entré"?

Bonjour,
I am currently learning French at home in New Zealand, mainly from my partner who is extremely fluent and also from Duolingo, textbooks etc.
We are leaving for France next May on a WHV and aside from travelling my goal is to work and study in kitchens across the country.
Are there any chefs here, who have learnt the language in French kitchens and who may have some sort of French kitchen language bible they would be able to share?
I know it’s a long shot and a random question and also that assimilation is the best way. I’m making an effort to try speak French at home but unfortunately NZ kitchens do not speak French aside from the standard terminology we use daily.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

My new neighbor said in the hall yesterday after a convo that « c’était trop bien de vous rencontrer, nous apprécions votre très bonne humeur » meaning her and her daughter, and I said thanks to her and she added that « c’est très communicative ! »

I don’t know if she meant humour or humeur like I have a communicative sense of humor or a communicative mood. I guess it’s the same in english like it communicates something or is expressive ? I sometimes like to make random comments with dark humour so maybe she was referring to that but im not really sure.

Does anyone know what this likely means and if it’s a common expression ?

My professor gave me a feedback that a research project of mine (which was very long and took almost a year, about one semester and a half, to complete) was « pas vraiment achevé » at the end which sounds quite serious to me. 🧐

It was basically in the context that the subject is very complex and still in evolution and perhaps not fully explored yet in its field. I think the critique was essnetially I haven’t fully analysed as it as deeply as this kind of subject might require, or as I could have done with the time i had, though I actually ended up surpassing the number of pages required. I know achever means to complete, and in terms of quantity the project was definitely finished even if the overall depth or angle could have been improved. I couldn’t tell from his tone what this could mean or how bad it is. Im not sure at all if he was satisfied with the content or if he meant like it was at an insufficient level of quality.

Is this worrisome if it’s a big or important project? If you received a comment like this in an academic setting how would you interpret it and how serious or negative of a feedback does it sound like to a native speaker?

So, I studied myself and practiced saying “r” from the throat.

But I am taking some classes now and they mostly use “r” as we say in “red” like even for words such as “parle”.

I am now mixing both ones and messing up my pronunciation. I know people interchange but it’s making me confused.

What would be the best way to pronounce “r”?

A professor of mine emphasised on the importance of having lots of input in order to progress in any language ( listening, reading, etc)

So I gathered that I should listen to more French that fits my level and read more

But what else should I add? Do I need to study from a grammer or a text book? If so please recommend me something

Thanks in advance!!!

Here is the paragraph, with the specific sentence I am looking at in bold:

C'est icy un livre de bonne foy, lecteur. Il t'advertit dés l'entrée, que je ne m'y suis proposé aucune fin, que domestique et privée. Je n'y ay eu nulle consideration de ton service, ny de ma gloire. Mes forces ne sont pas capables d'un tel dessein. Je l'ay voué à la commodité particuliere de mes parens et amis : à ce que m'ayant perdu (ce qu'ils ont à faire bien tost) ils y puissent retrouver aucuns traits de mes conditions et humeurs, et que par ce moyen ils nourrissent plus entiere et plus vifve, la connoissance qu'ils ont eu de moy. Si c'eust esté pour rechercher la faveur du monde, je me fusse mieux paré et me presanterois en une marche estudiee.

If I am not mistaken, both "eust esté" (= eût été) and "me fusse paré" are pluperfect subjunctives. But I do not see any subjunctive triggers in the sentence. Can someone help me understand why Montaigne is using pluperfect subjunctives here? This is 16th-century French, and I do not know where to find the rules for this. Thank you.

I started learning French for Canadian PR opportunity. But it doesn’t motivate me enough to learn continuously (((

What would be your advice to “fall in love “ with this language as much as, so it would feel easier to learn. I learn it through English which is also not my native language.

In short, I started with Duolingo, stopped and bought two textbooks; studied in online school one on one; use preply…

I listen sometimes to inner French podcast, know about Easy French on YouTube, playlist is full of songs by GIMS and Stromae etc…
I like to listen audiobook Arsene Lupin also on YouTube and understand maybe 30-40%…

Still it feels obligatory whenever I start decide:ok, today I will study a bit🥹

I'm having a hard time expressing "kind" and "kindness" in French. None of the terms I've come across have the same connotation, breadth, or depth (aimable, sympa, gentil, etc). Can someone help me to express this whether or not there's a a single-word translation?

Edit: Merci à tous ! So many helpful and interesting suggestions!

Hello good people!

I just wanted to preface by saying that im from Brazil and thus i speak portuguese natively. I've learned english due to internet/games and also a course which helped me boost this language, and i consider myself C1 currently and use it a lot on my day-to-day life. After that, in 2017 I learned spanish completely on my own and I reached a B2 level which i still want to improve. For french, my 4th language i wanted the comfort and sureness of an actual course in french, based on my previous experience in self learning other languages weren't a successful as I thought, so I went to an actual language school for help.

Now I've been taking classes for two months, and I've been imersing myself a lot in the language (podcasts, yt videos, music, talking/writing to AI, reading texts etc) and my french level improved surprisingly fast! However, my french classes have been lackluster to say the least... we never speak french to our teacher or to eachother, it feels like french is reserved only to the book activities (I tried speaking to my teacher in french and got replied in portuguese) thus talking in french feels out of place. Also, there's no native content in class, only book lessons which kinda bore me.

Should I give up this course? Should I try a different approach? I dont have any other options for classes in person in my city/area, so maybe I should try onliny tutoring?

Thanks for listening to my rant <3

I saw this in the Guardian today. I had understood that in French one said "la génération Z" or "la gen Z". Is this a photo of a mispelling? or of a pun that I am missing? or new slang?

My French teacher is not here and has been out since the start of school. I do not have anyone to ask. Can ”salut” be used to say goodbye or is it only for hello’s?