"Le chien marche près du cheval."

Translation: The dog walks near the horse.

[ledohoanglong]

"du cheval"? I think that "du" means "some" uncountable (du lait)

[eellrraatt]

du = de + le

[Eramance]

Sorry, this isn't clear to me. Why "du" when we are talking about one horse? Shouldn't it be "le"?

[Yuujen]

The set expression is "près de".

[iustitia]

So can you somehow see difference in this phrase if it is about specific horse or random, uncountable one if it is fixed?

[cdifazio]

You're right, but du is a contraction of de + le. 'Pres de' is a single phrase, and since it's followed by 'le cheval', it becomes 'du'.

[Jonaszz]

What would be "near to the dog?" in French?

[bonnie.sjoberg]

près du chien

[DanielShark29]

Interestingly I saw "pres du" in another sentence and typed "next to" and it told me I was wrong and it needed to "near the." This time I put "near to" which may be somewhat incorrect but it said that the correct answer was "next to."
Can "pres du" mean "next to" or not?