By the end of this lesson you'll be able to say "some bread" and "some water", choose between le pain and du pain, and say you don't have or eat something.
Some of something
In the lesson on food and drink you learned the names of foods with le, la and les. Now you need to say that you're eating some of them. French has a set of words for this called partitive articles, and they mean "some", an amount you aren't specifying.
| French | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| du | dew | some (masculine)du pain (some bread) |
| de la | duh lah | some (feminine)de la soupe (some soup) |
| de l' | duh l | some (before a vowel or silent h)de l'eau (some water) |
| des | day | some (plural)des pâtes (some pasta) |
The forms look just like the ones in the lesson on à and de with articles: de + le melts into du, and de la and de l' stay as they are. Here, though, they don't mean "of the". They mean "some".
English can often leave out "some": "I eat bread", "There's water". French can't. When you mean an amount of something, the word has to be there.
These are the verbs and phrases you'll use most with partitives.
| French | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| pas de / pas d' | pah DUH / pah D | no, not anyJe ne mange pas de viande. |
| manger | mahn-ZHAY | to eat |
| il y a | eel-YAH | there is, there are |
| j'ai | ZHAY | I have |
Je mange du fromage.
I eat cheese. / I'm eating some cheese.
Il y a de la bière.
There's some beer.
J'ai de l'eau.
I have some water.
Nous mangeons des fraises.
We're eating some strawberries.
Des is the same word as the plural of un and une, so you've used it already.
Le pain or du pain?
This is the key idea in this lesson. The two sets of articles do different jobs.
- Le, la, les talk about a thing in general, or a particular one. Le pain, c'est bon. (Bread is good.)
- Du, de la, des talk about some of it, an amount. Je mange du pain. (I'm eating some bread.)
So verbs of liking normally take le, la or les, because you like bread as a whole. That's what you learned in the lesson on likes and dislikes. But manger, il y a and j'ai normally take du, de la or des, because you're dealing with an amount.
Compare the two:
J'aime le poulet, et je mange du poulet.
I like chicken, and I eat chicken.
If you do mean a particular one, the definite article is right after manger as well: Je mange le gâteau de Marie (I'm eating Marie's cake).
After a negative verb
You know from the lesson on negation that un, une and des change to de after a negative verb. The partitives do the same. Du, de la and de l' all become de, or d' before a vowel or silent h.
- Je mange du pain. → Je ne mange pas de pain.
- Il y a de la soupe. → Il n'y a pas de soupe.
- J'ai de l'eau. → Je n'ai pas d'eau.
Le, la and les don't change, so verbs of liking keep theirs: Je n'aime pas le café. The partitive also stays after être, just as un and une do: Ce n'est pas du vin.
Il n'y a pas de lait.
There's no milk.
Putting it together
Here's a short exchange in a kitchen.
- Il y a du pain ? (Is there any bread?)
- Oui, et il y a du beurre. (Yes, and there's some butter.)
- Et de l'eau ? (And any water?)
- Non, il n'y a pas d'eau. (No, there's no water.)
What's next
Next, the lesson on ordering at a café lets you use these words with real people. For amounts such as "a lot of" or "a bottle of", you'll eventually want the lesson on expressions of quantity.