Is anyone really good at French?

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McGoohan Oct 2016 10:50am, 14 Oct 2016 26,164 posts	0 McGoohan They will keep trying to bring culture to Redhill...
ChrisHB Oct 2016 10:55am, 14 Oct 2016 13,922 posts	0 ChrisHB Since we've lived here, there has been an official decision to do exactly the opposite of that at the Harlequin. How these live transmissions of ballets and operas have got in is anyone's guess. Possibly the Official Censor is not only a part-time job and they are unable to keep up.
ChrisHB Oct 2016 10:55am, 14 Oct 2016 13,923 posts	0 ChrisHB (remove the not from the past sentence, please)
ChrisThePuma Oct 2016 12:57pm, 17 Oct 2016 3,856 posts	0 ChrisThePuma My friend is (native) French - this is her response: Hello Chris, nice to hear from you. With H in French they are in many cases silent and many names will be so you will say la maison d'Henri rather than la maison de Henri, it flows better.
ChrisHB Oct 2016 2:30pm, 17 Oct 2016 13,935 posts	0 ChrisHB Thanks, Chris, I do know that French has an "h" aspiré, and since I started this thread I've been reminded that it can be quite inconsistent, as in le héros / l'héroïne. I've found these examples that support my view; L’Anglais Norman Davies, spécialiste compétent de l’Histoire de la Pologne, a rapporté des anecdotes "amusantes" sur l’activité de Hoffmann. Le signe de Hoffmann est un signe clinique and even the translation of ETA Hoffmann's work: Contes fantastiques de Hoffmann traduits par m. P. Christian.
ChrisHB Apr 2017 4:36pm, 20 Apr 2017 14,703 posts	0 ChrisHB New question: La véloroute tranquile serpente sur la falaise traversant des petits villages. Why "des" and not "de"?
jennywren Apr 2017 4:48pm, 20 Apr 2017 14,993 posts	0 jennywren Because 'petits villages' is plural, surely?
JenL Apr 2017 4:58pm, 20 Apr 2017 27,540 posts	0 JenL I'm late to this but Les Contes d'Hoffman is following the same pattern as table d'hôte, non?
JenL Apr 2017 5:04pm, 20 Apr 2017 27,541 posts	0 JenL Isn't it just one of those things in a language where speakers can choose between two options? In English, for example, we say "The Tales of Hoffman" because that's the title of the piece that we've been given but we could just as easily, and grammatically, say "Hoffman's tales". In French, it seems some speaker's prefer the d'H version and others go for de H, much as in English some people will say "An hotel" and others will say "a hotel" - neither is more correct; both are grammatical.
JenL Apr 2017 5:05pm, 20 Apr 2017 27,542 posts	0 JenL Goodness - where did that ' come from in speakers?