#translating english to french help

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shrewd fieldBOT
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translating english to french help

spare ice
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"I am a student at a university."

Here the important part is the use of the preposition "at", indicating where you are studying.
Prepositions translate quite poorly between languages, and they can be switched around depending on the context.
In French, you'd only use "à" in this context to name the university. If you're stating a category of place, for instance "université", the preposition "dans" is used instead.

=> je suis étudiant dans une université
=> je suis étudiant à Oxford

Now, "à l'université" also exists, but rather that conveying where you're studying, it qualifies the level of studies you're doing (at a university level). The reason you're using the definite pronoun le/la here is because you're talking about university in general (as a level), not a specific university (as a place/building)
je suis étudiant à l'université => I am a university student

Side note, but obviously those are very direct translations. Other constructions exist, some being more idiomatic, for instance "j'étudie en université" (other preposition + French prefers using verbs over nouns)

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"I speak french very well"

Here it's important to note what the words are doing.
"very well" is an adverb, meaning it qualifies the verb of the sentence "speak French"
In French, adverbs are for the most part placed directly after the verb.
The thing is, in that instance exactly, the verb could be either considered to be "parle" or "parle français". You thus have two correct word orders
=> je parle très bien français (generally preferred)
=> je parle français très bien (less so but still used)

idle moth
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"Je parle français très bien" is correct, but we never said it. We are using "Je parle très bien français"

spare ice
idle moth
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It's just that "Je parle français très bien" sounds strange to a french person

tidal cypress
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hmm interesting 🤔 .. in this sentense though, wouldn't français technically be an adverb aswell because it's describing what we are speaking?

viral pewter
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Not really. It's an object. You can also say "parler le français" (even more when you specify the kind of language you're using, e.g. le français de France).

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But generally, when it's just the language alone, the article is omitted.

spare ice
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Although note this is a special case with "parler" + [language] behaving differently compared to most constructions

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For the grammatical bit, adverbs aren't something, they just describe how an action is performed. "well" is not a thing, it's not a noun, it just describes how you're speaking. Whereas "French" is a language. That's what you're speaking

tidal cypress
spare ice
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exceptions by definition don't have a general rule :p

tidal cypress
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haha 😅 fair fair

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I guess the more I practice, more I'll pick it up

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One last question, from a TEF exam perspective, is one preferred over the other ?

idle moth
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Je parle très bien français

spare ice
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both should work fine
but if you wanna be extra safe might go for that first one