French language Q&A Forum

I've been taught this phrase in another course but never really understood its use -  ça y est. It was presented to me as one of those catchall phrases for "yes, that's right!", "yeah, that's it" as a somewhat utterance one makes to ones self (or to others) that you've been suddenly successful at something or an acknowledgment that you're at least on the right track. So I used this here instead of "c'est ça". Did I use it correctly? I actually had "c'est ça" first but then I changed it to see if I had actually finally found a way to use "ça y est" correctly.

(By the way, why can't I use the hold down the keyboard trick to apply accents, etc in this Q & A box? I have to admit it prevents me oftentimes from asking questions since I can't be precise.)

Ils vont visiter 'la tour Eiffel' ce matin.

Would it be replaced by a direct object or y

They will visit it = la or they will visit there = y

Ils vont la visiter or ils vont y visiter.

Entres - y

Is the negative n'y entre pas or n'y entres pas .... Does the s drop or not ?

Tu sais, le célèbre couturier ?  Why is "sais" used rather than "connaiss”? I thought:  Savoir means "to know a fact", while connaître means to know a person or to be familiar with a person, place or thing.  Merci!

I am aware that this has been discussed before but it is clear to me that in certain cases “passer une année” can be used.

For example, on the web page https://acupoffrench.com/french-grammar/an-vs-annee-2/, which also explains when to use “an” or “année”, there is the following example with passer and année used to stress the duration:

“Elle a passé quatre années à chercher un travail.”

So I think it would not hurt to explicitly mention this possibility to use année instead of an to stress the duration. 

For the general case (not just related to passer), I think the rule from “Advanced French Grammar”/Monique L’Huillier section 5.2.1 an/année is clearer than the “time unit” vs “duration” distinction: “an usually follows cardinal numbers, whilst année follows ordinal numbers, or an indefinite or demonstrative adjective”.

This rule does not hold for jour/journée, soir/soirée and matin/matinée and these cases  are treated separately in the book.

This rule is then followed up in the book with “If the year is modified in any way, “année” should be used” with the following examples.

“J’ai vécu à Londres pendant cinq ans.”

”J’ai gardé un très bon souvenir de mes cinq années à Londres.”

Why didn't we use '..nous allions au sud de la France'? When do we use 'au sud' and when do we use 'dans le sud'? Or 'au nord'/ 'dans le nord'?

https://www.lawlessfrench.com/vocabulary/directions/

Shouldn't it be changions de voitures for "change cars" - i.e. plural form for cars? Isn't there a difference between 'change cars' and 'change our car' - i.e. the noun being singular or plural?

How do I identify a masculine or feminine noun?

I don't think the problem is my computer but many of the sections here would not play sound