French language Q&A Forum

Why is it just à and not à + le = au

Je suis monté au cheval.

I just want to second Jessica’s comment. Any time I have a positive experience when learning French, the person or group on the other side is either anglophone or lives in an anglophone world. Too many French teachers and examiners seem to walk in with an antagonistic attitude, especially when dealing with anglophones. Setting folks up to fail with a “listen through a tin can” type test seems entirely characteristic of this. I live in France with a delightful French man (he needs English every day for his professional activities) but if I have anything to do involving French authorities, I insist that either he go with me or handle it completely, even when I feel confident that in ordinary circumstances I could handle it myself, entirely in French. I started doing this on the advice of my immigration attorney, who routinely gives this advice to her clients. Not always, fortunately, but too often, it makes the difference between succeeding and failing. Ordinary French people are generally fine, but any serious student should be forewarned regarding these “gatekeepers” who seem to gravitate toward giving language tests, granting residence permits, etc. and seem to delight in creating arbitrary hurdles, arguing — falsely — that one cannot get by just by speaking English ( if she didn’t have a problem with anglophones, why did she make that statement?), reducing Sciences Po students from “hero” to “zero,” etc. You can’t do much about them but at least you can be psychologically prepared.

I was really upset (so upset, I have to write this in English) by the March 7th sitting of the DELF B2, as were many of my collegues who expressed the same sentiment: The oral comprehension was so extremely difficult.  It was a telephone interview, which sounded like it took place in a tin can.  I have prepared very well for the DELF B2.  I listed to France 1 everyday for 6 months.  By far, the selected interview for this test was the most difficult and the WORST quality of an interview I ever heard.  Furthermore, the speaker had a very low voice, and all his words were 'liasoned' together.

It seems to me that the want you to fail the B2.  At B1, they are so happy that you have come that far with French and are so supportive.  But at B2, they want to trick you and make it exceedingly difficult and set you up for failure.  It was extremely stressful and not happy time as expressed in this video.

I wish there was someone to express this complaint to, especially if I fail.

I am really struggling to understand the difference between these as they are both used when there is a choice as What/Which.   I have read the lessons on these over and over but still consistently getting answers wrong.  I was wondering if someone could explain as simply as possible please!

Many thanks

Amanda

Again, One of your examples under the heading - 

la moitié de [quelque chose] = half -the- [something]

was  “Il ne mange qu'une moitié du biscuit.”

Can you clarify, then, why response “Tu as bu une moitié de la bouteille.” was marked incorrect and the suggested correct response was “la moitié de” ? 

ahah, I see that a lot of people are having some trouble understanding the difference, as well as i.

I went a bit more simple, here are the sentences I'm confused with:

in the first sentence, I understand that I have to use indirect pronouns as I'm writing *to* [person]. However, this makes it kind of similar in the second sentence as he responded *to* it, but it can be easily confused with lui as I've already mentioned someone with the same type of subject? I'm just confused overall aaaa.