Je nes pas sais? What.

Just a lexicon curiosity. I recently discovered that the English phrase "Goodbye" is a contraction for "God be with you" and then I thought about it and realized that is very similar in meaning to the spanish translation "adios" since the Spanish word for God is "Dios"

However, when I hear French people speak, they almost never say "adieu" as a common greeting the way we say Goodbye in English or "adios" in spanish.

Why is that ? Doesn't it "adieu" literally mean the same thing?

Salut -

I was trying to think of a way of summarising the use of lots of French tenses in one cartoon and came up with this… I was trying to go from past to future across the scene but there’s lots of overlap. I’d love to get some feedback on how accurate it is and how useful it might be to any other learners.

- Merci

(Also posting to learnFrench etc)

i got confused because i was watching this without subtitles and thought he said je suis un t shirt

screenshot from youtube channel called french happens

Je reste en Louisiane, et "être après" est le moyen qu'on dit "être en train de" icitte, et je crois quèques places d'autres en Amerique du Nord aussi toujours. Nous-autres on le dit bien souvent itou, mais je le dis pas équand je parle avec du monde qui vient pas de la Louisiane pour être mieux compris; est-ce qu'il faut vraiment? C'est connu à quel point mondialement?

Edit: Une éxample, en lieu de "je mangeais quand tu m'as appellé," ça serait "j'étais après manger quand tu m'as appellé." Une autre c'est "Je peux pas m'en venir, j'suis après faire mes linges."

This kids’ menu at a Parisian bistro says: “SODA, GLACE ou GÂTEAU AU CHOCOLAT” (soft drink, ice cream or chocolate cake)

Does this mean: (1) You always get a soda, plus either ice cream or chocolate cake, OR (2) You only get one item total: soda or ice cream or chocolate cake?

The restaurant manager pointed out that you cannot repeat “ou” in French so that’s why the comma, so patrons can only get 1 out of 3. I find it unclear. Is that the proper usage in French? What does reddit think?

I've got exams for DELF B2 level next week and I've been revising. However, it seems that my teacher has not taught us so many tenses and moods, despite me always reminding her. Is this normal? I've crossed out tenses and moods I haven't been taught

Why is the pronoun repeated in this sentence? We already read that it‘s about the United States, so why do we repeat the ils?

I can‘t find an answer anywhere, I don‘t get this grammar and how/when i should use it? Any examples? Thank you!

(the screenshot is for showing an example, I‘ve been seeing this grammar a lot in titles of youtube videos)

Is it purely context based? What if I were to say “I feel and smell amazing”?

In my casual attempt to learn french, I got myself a translation of an English book I really adore (Wings of Fire: The Dragonet Prophecy). I’ve read this book in English at least 3 times. Now…I was under the impression that French people formatted dialogue similarly to English except they use «these things» instead of “quotation marks.” but this translation does not do that, it doesnt really separate the dialogue and action at all besides the initial hyphen. I find that formatting it like -This isn’t an IceWing egg, she hissed. You stole it from the Sky Palace. to be a needlessly confusing way to do it. Is this…normal in French?

This might be kind of a silly question but I wanted to ask it. I'm staying in Montreal for a couple of months and when I'm here I really want to use French in regular life settings. I have a bit of the language but I'm still learning. The thing I'm stumbling on is how would I ask for a bag in the grocery store?

I have looked it up online and seen a couple of different translations. I've tried "je voudrais un sac", "je prendre un sac" and "je peux avoir un sac" and though people I have talked to know the meaning that I want to have a bag, I still sometimes get confused looks. It might also be my accent too. I think I'm mostly unsure what the right thing to say would be.

If you were kind of casually in a grocery store how is the best / native way to ask? What is the main difference between the different forms above? I'm not sure what is formal / rude / grammer weird? Also if people say do I want paper or cloth or ask what kind of bag what can I say? Thanks for reading!

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?

I think this is the first time I’ve seen google translate do ts

if the sentence is: "je veux plus de café" and its written down. how can i differentiate if the plus here is more or no more and the "ne" is omitted?

Hi all.

C'est ma première fois dans ce Subreddit alors c'est parti!

I was watching Harry Potter when the scene where harry rescues, who I presume to be Fleur's little sister, from the water. She appears to say "Viens, tient à moi"

Not too sure if this is some French that I'm yet to come across or it's incorrect grammar. Any help would be useful.

Thank you.

Image attached...

When I read it I can either read it as because this city is very (referring to where they are), or because that city is (referring to Paris). With English it’s either this or that but when the this and that share the same word is there some rule to be able to tell or is it all just context?

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?

do i add the article or not?

I speak Spanish and Arabic and am trying to learn French (obviously haha).

I studied a good bit as a freshman in high school but stopped because of the pandemic. Now I’m starting up again and I’m realizing that I really really cannot make any connection between verbs and their respective conjugations. It seems like every verb I try to use is irregular.

Finir conjugates differently from Venir and Dormir conjugates differently from both of them.

Monter conjugates differently in Pasé Composé than donner and manger.

Dire is different from perdre, etc

It seems like most common words have very little similarities in conjugation.

Are there more irregular verbs in French than most other languages? Or is this all just a coincidence?

I’m around B1 now, and honestly the toughest thing so far has been “y” and “en”.

I understand what you're saying, but I still get confused or hesitate when I write real sentences.

I want to know what everyone else had the most trouble with and if it just 'clicked' for you or if you had to practise a lot.

Not “‘l’appartement de ma grand-mère Lucie”??? I have NEVER seen French adopt the possessive S as an anglicism. Is this actually a thing?

(Also, why is it not spelled “grande-mère”? That has always bugged me.)

I'm curious to know what aspect of learning French you found most confusing to the point that when you finally learned how it worked you were left asking

"Why wasn't I told this earlier ?!?"

For example, I've heard people say that they were never taught how object pronouns worked in French and were just simply asked to memorize phrases like "je m'appelle" not really understanding exactly what it means word by word.

Let me know below your personal experiences like this!