Grammar and Pronounciation help, S'il vous plait

Tomorrow is my exam and there are somethings I am still confused about. Some part of the paper will be oral and I am very bad at listening fewnch. Usually don't understand when I hear it because I am new learner.

In the grammar part:

1. 'L'interrogation avec qu'est-ce que'

2.When to use de, a and 'Il a' (not il ya)

Merci.

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on July 28, 2011 at 1:23am

In (1), "qu'est-ce que ...?" means "What ...?" when the "what" is the 'object' being asked about. Or in simple terms, when you're asking what somebody Xs or "what they are Xing", where "X" is the action (e.g. what they like/are doing/hear/give etc). So for example:

Qu'est-ce que tu fais? = What are you doing?

Qu'est-ce que tu bois/manges? = What are you drinking/eating?

Qu'est-ce que tu as fait hier? = What did you do yesterday?

In (2), you raise a number of broader points.

Il a ... generally means "He has ...". However, it is also used with ages and a few other notions (mainly hunger/thirst) where English would actually say "is". So: Il a size ans = He's sixteen, and Il a faim/soif means He's hungry/thirsty. But normally it means "He has", e.g. Il a deux frères = "He has two brothers".

At its most basic level, "de" means "of" or "from", and "à" means "to" or "at". They usually have quite opposite meanings. I think if you only have one day to revise, it's going to be difficult to go into much more detail than that, but if there are specific cases that are confusing you around "à" vs "de", then perhaps if you say what they are we can try and elaborate.