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Grammar
Objective: Deploy accurate partitives for masculine, feminine, and vowel-initial mass nouns, and shift to de after negation or quantity adverbs.
| Article | Used before | Example | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| du | masculine singular nouns | du pain | some bread |
| de la | feminine singular nouns | de la viande | some meat |
| de l' | vowel or silent-h nouns | de l'eau | some water |
| des | plural nouns | des légumes | some vegetables |
In a negative sentence, du, de la, and des reduce to de, since negation removes the specified quantity.
Pomme is a countable noun, so a single apple takes the indefinite une. The partitive would describe apple as a substance, as in de la purée de pomme.
Café is masculine singular, so the partitive is du. The sentence names an unspecified amount, not one specific cup.
Soupe is feminine singular, so the partitive is de la.
Eau begins with a vowel, so de l' replaces both du and de la.
Fruits is plural, so the partitive is des. This is identical in form to the plural indefinite article.
The adverb beaucoup is followed by de alone, with no article. The form beaucoup du travail is incorrect.
6 exercises · about 9 minutes
Quantity adverbs such as beaucoup and un peu are followed by de alone, without an article.
Before a vowel or silent h, du and de la both elide to de l', producing the correct form de l'eau.
In the negative, de la reduces to de. The negation cancels the quantity.
Un peu de is a quantity expression followed by de. The noun fromage takes no article after the expression.
Before a vowel-initial noun, de elides to d'. The negative context triggers the elision.