Style and register

French shifts register through grammar as much as through words. Formal writing keeps the full negation, je ne sais pas, inverts questions, pouvez-vous m'aider ?, and prefers nous to on.

Some everyday forms are wrong in careful writing: malgré que, pallier à and se rappeler de become bien que, pallier and se rappeler: je me rappelle cette histoire.

Mind the words that look alike: davantage (more) and d'avantage (of advantage), quelque (some) and quel que (whatever), plutôt (rather) and plus tôt (earlier).