I have a question concerning the relative pronouns in French, more specifically the difference between "auquel" and "à quoi". They both can refer to things (the second one only to things), the second one with things more abstract or wider categories, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Is there some clear rule what to apply when? Are they

Does anyone know what it means? I found these explanations, which are of no help, since I don't know what "côgne" is. I suspect it might be something like 'hunch'.

côgne (un). Cou de travers ; on dit : cet homme est côgne ; c'est-à-dire, il a le cou de travers ( Read more... )

I have a question concerning this line: Les photos, les chansons et les orchestrations
Ont eus raison de mes économies. Is this "s" at the end of the past participle of avoir necessary?

This is where I found it:

Could you please tell me what l' mean in this sentence?

Mais l'on mesurerait mal la << matérialité >> de certaines images de l'eau, la << densité >> de certains fantômes, si l'on avait pas d'abord étudié les formes irisées, tout en surface.

from L'eau et les rêves by Gaston Bachelard

Since I can't find it in any Old French dictionary that is available to me, and it's driving me nuts, I decided to post here in hopes that someone would know the meaning of the word "moysne"/"moisne" and the word that looks like "aulP" (the second in the first row, then again in the second row, and more), but maybe I'm not able to decipher it ( Read more... )

Imagine that a boy is standing on the deck of a ship. The ship is leaving a port. The boy looks back at a town, which is getting smaller and smaller because of the growing distance, and regrets that he has to leave ( Read more... )

I have a question about a certain sentence in the passive voice. My lecturer, who is not a native speaker, said that my sentence is incorrect. I would appreciate if the native speakers could comment ( Read more... )

I am translating p 390-391 from Aries "L'Homme devant la mort" for my class and I'm really not sure about these two expressions ( Read more... )

I was told that some short and frequently used adjectives come before nouns, among them long. But French Wiktionary in point 2 has examples of the opposite. Une table longue. [...] Un champ long et étroit.

And why vieux is put before the noun and neuf after the noun?

I am trying to read "Lancelot" in Old French (unless it's Old Occitan, or something else). There seem to be three kinds of articles "li", "la" and "lo". From the context I guess that "li"="le", "la"="la", but I can't figure out what "lo" is supposed to mean (modern grammar says that the nouns proceeded with "lo" are masculine). It seems that "el" ( Read more... )