"Bonjour les enfants !"

[dermot123]

why is "les" there when its children not the children

[sanjayananda]

"Hello the children"? Is this proper French?

[Sbot999]

Yes, Yes it is see :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_articles_and_determiners#Definite_article
and scroll to where it mentions "Mass noun",

[td.worthey08]

Hi Chef!

[lclement94]

This was going through my head.

[aldobonilla]

is not KINDS. But kids!

[mackaypei]

is it not bon matin?

[chasj]

Why not 'kids' instead of 'children'?

[Katie723]

It should say kids instead of kinds.

[u83rmensch]

i am still having a very difficult time being able to determine "le" and "les" based of voice alone. they both just sound like "lehe" something im missing?

[northernguy]

Listening through my headphones, the slow version quite reliably pronounces les as lay (sort of). Unless it`s followed by a word beginning with a vowel in which case I can usually hear an s at the end of les.

[td.worthey08]

Nothernguy, you're right.. If you exaggerate them, 'le' is pronounced 'LUH', and the plural, les, pronounced 'LAY'.

The 's' on the end of les is pronounced if there's a vowel on the following word, by the rules of liaison. But terminal 's' is pronounced as /z/ when ellided..just a note!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liaison_(French)

[northernguy]

Thank you. I wondered if the elided s (z sound) was consistent with French rules or just the kind of slippery alteration that people normally do when speaking.

My interest arose because the French are famous for having agencies whose sole purpose is to develop rules that prevent the French language from evolving through changes initiated by common usage.