French language Q&A Forum

Jean-Jacques Goldman et Céline Dion!!  J'adore cette chanson.

"On me dit qu'aujourd'hui, on me dit que les autres font ainsi..je ne suis pas les autres..non....non"

Bonjour ! 

I have been told by French people that I cannot apply this rule to the verb commencer à. 

For example: 

Je commence à faire mes devoirs. J'y commence. 

I am starting to do my homework. I'm starting it. 

Is it an exception ? Or is it just socially not regularly used ? 

Merci ! 

No.

We are asked to translate ‘Sprinkle with salt and pepper’.

The two possible answers that are given are:

1, Saupoudrez avec du sel et du poivre 

2. Saupoudrez de sel et de poivre

I understand why du is correct as as it is used with ‘uncountable’ nouns which in this case are sel and poivre.

Could you please explain why de sel and de poivre are also correct.

I thought I understood this and that you have to base gender and number on the subject (first noun) as it was done here in the examples. So I would say, and have in fact been saying "Elle est plus grande que son frère" and "Il est plus grand que sa sœur".

Now I have a workbook that told me to write:

"Un village est plus petitE qu'une ville"---> Using the gender of ville, the second noun in the comparison, rather than the gender of village. That's wrong, right?

It also told me to write "Paris est plus grandE que Bordeaux". The only explanation for this I have is that they are "La ville de Paris/Bordeaux" here and hence feminine. Does that sound right?

I think it's time to recycle my workbook...