French language Q&A Forum

Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert French teachers

13,693 questions • 29,339 answers • 834,335 learners

Ask a question

Find your French level for FREE

Test your French to the CEFR standard

Find your French level
Melody S.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor
Use of être and avoir vs. faire

I'm not sure where to put these questions.  I did read the discussion about Darbeinet's text, which gives examples of measurements.  Three examples used avoir and one used être.  It did not use faire.  (I am not familiar with Darbeinet, just trying to make sense of the discussions.)

The answer was "that Darbeinet's text is a bit out of date and to native speakers (members of the language team and relatives ;-) ), 'faire' is definitely the verb to use here."

The example that used être (from Darbeinet) was "Ce bâtiment est long de trente mètres." I don't see how this differs in construction from "La porte est large d'un mètre", one of two correct answers in a Kwiz.  

So être is out of date?  But we are being taught être  as well as faire? Quoi?

Of the three examples using avoir (from Darbeinet) one is "Ce bâtiment a trente mètres de long."  Larousse online has the example "ici la rivière a 2 km de large--  here the river is 2 km wide".  (in definition of large) Those two examples seem similar to each other in construction.

A question about "Ce gouffre a trente mètres de profondeur" from a month ago was answered with ---

/Bonjour Tecla,

This question has already been discussed : "faire" is definitely the verb to use./

So, Larousse, also, is wrong/out of date in using avoir as the verb here?  

I am truly confused.  Reading the linked discussion was part of that confusion. 

As 'they' say, halp!

Asked 1 year ago

Find your French level for FREE

Test your French to the CEFR standard

Find your French level
I'll be right with you...