<p>my teacher on one of the many near failing tests I have…</p>
<p>anywho I found one of my tests and I have a question.</p>
<p>Je serais totalement independant(e) si _____________</p>
<p>and I filled it out as “J’avais d’argent” but she circled the “d’argent” and my friend corrected it as “de l’argent” Why is this? I don’t understand the difference.</p>
<p>It’s a question of the partitive and the genitive. The genitive usage is the simple “d’argent,” like you used. In french, this is mostly only used after expressions of quantity. If you’d written “Je serais totalement independante si j’avais beaucoup d’argent,” that would have been fine.</p>
<p>But when there is no quantity expression and you have a “mass noun” like “argent” (by which I mean a noun that has to be measured, not counted), then French says you throw in the article to make the partitive. So it would be “J’avais de l’argent.”</p>
<p>Similarly . . .</p>
<p>“Hier soir j’ai pris trop de vin” would be okay (quantity expression), and so would</p>
<p>“Hier soir j’ai pris du vin” (de + le = du, and vin is a mass noun, and there’s no quantity expression), BUT</p>
<p>“Hier soir j’ai pris de vin” is no good–without the quantity expression, I need an article.</p>
<p>Is anyone on this thread? I have plusieurs de questions…</p>
<p>Like here’s one: should we know ALL the verb tenses (subjunctive and passe simple too)? I’m talking fill-ins. Do they ever ask you to fill in a subjunctive, say?</p>
<p>Also, anyone know the cutoff scores for a 5? 4? The fill-ins are only 30 or so points, presumably out of 150, so I want to know how much it’ll bring me down if I blow them. ;)</p>
<p>yes all verb forms except passe simple. you are required to identify passe simple but not “know know” it. you can replace passe simple with passe compose.</p>
<p>I just came across this thread! It’s so helpful, especially considering I’m uberscrewed for the exam tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who’s asked and answered questions!</p>
<p>what’s a word that means “so” or “therefore” besides “donc”? Because I’ve been noticing I use that a lot. Also, can someone give me a better phrase than “beacoup de” and “tres” because I’ve been using that a lot too and I sound like a ■■■■■■.</p>
<p>it was ok. not that bad. i screwed up on fill in. did ok in essay (i mixed up encore and autre) and i did ok in speaking (i stuttered on one part really badly and I didnt know what to say). the reading was pretty easy, and fun too! I didn’t know it was so much like SAT verbal…cept in french! </p>
<p>they diologue messed me up. they spoke too fast</p>
<p>Yeah I thought it was okay too. I thought listening and reading were fairly easy (it WAS a lot like the SAT verbal!), I kind of had to rush through my essay so who knows, and my speaking was pretty bad (but I think maybe I might be able to get a 3/5 on the speaking?) Fill in the blanks for function words were kinda tough, but verbs were easy. So no one knows the curve?</p>
<p>i thought the listening was harder than a practice test we took, but the reading was understandable. my essay was short, i had trouble thinking of good ideas, but i packed in (hopefully correctly) almost every grammatical contruction i’ve ever learned. i’m hoping for a 4.</p>