Hi! I'm trying to describe people's skin tone in French and keep finding different answers.

How would you naturally say "she has olive skin" and "she has dark skin"?

And does "peau mate" / "teint mat" fit either of those? I've seen it used for both, so I can't tell whether it just means olive/tanned or can also mean properly dark skin.

Thanks!

All of the two letter words that end in “e,” do they all have the same “e” sound?

Bonjour Tout le Monde!
I am just entering into the present subjunctive tense in French in my class at Alliance Française. I seem to be continually confusing the tenses and having issues remembering how the tenses are formed and remembering them for activities and speaking, etc. Does anyone have a good way of memorization or a method that worked for them to get these tenses down in your brain? Maybe I need to go back and rememorize some of the earlier tenses, like the imparfait and others first? Merci beaucoup!

TLDR: Thanks for any contributors I hope I didn’t make this more complicated than it needs to be I just am curious how to utilize this highly recommended book (Grammaire progressive du francais niveau débutant) when it’s all in French.

I’m sure this question gets asked 1000 times a year but after looking through many years old reddit posts there seems to be no clear answer, so rather than ask what grammar book I should use as a beginner looking to learn French, I’ve narrowed it down to a particular book that I keep seeing recommended.

For context, from seeing other posts going “why read a language u want to learn to speak?” This wouldn’t be the only way I’m keeping in mind/will utilize things like children’s shows and podcasts I’ve seen recommended that give you conversational listening practice but being a native English speaker and intermediate Spanish speaker I too understand the importance of basic grammar for reading signs and literature and being able to construct your own sentences logically with that foundational knowledge behind it.

All that being said i keep seeing “Grammaire progressive du francais niveau débutant” recommended.

Now here’s the thing:

It’s all in French.

So if people seem to be recommending this frequently. How are u recommending it be used? Like looking through the first pages I get how you can begin to infer the grammar based on the practices it has you do but if you don’t know the words in the first place I feel like you’re not imprinting the right pattern recognition in your brain.

Is it best to just funnel each new word I find in this through translate and then move forward slowly but steadily?

Also what about pronunciation? French is interesting because compared to Spanish it has a lot of “silent” vowels and consonant. Like “A” in Spanish is “Un” and is pronounced “oon” but in French it’s spelled same way but seems to be pronounced more like “uh” leaving the N sound out it seems. I think pronunciation is important from the start otherwise you’ll sound like a person trying to speak French rather than a person who’s fluent in it so how would anyone recommend pronunciation of the words and such that one comes across in this book? Just put it through translate and hear how it’s supposed to be said?

Is “se” pronounced the exact same as the “sou” in souci? Or is it different?

Does the “a” in French words always have to be pronounced like the “a” in “mall/call/tall” in English? Or can it also be pronounced like the “a” sound in “come/from, ummm” in English. Obviously those technically aren’t “a” sounds but hopefully you understand what I’m saying.