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- "Les garçons boivent du lait."
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If you have to fill-in the blank "les garçons boivent du___", only a masculine noun starting with a consonant can work
- les garçons boivent du lait
- les garçons boivent de l'eau - feminine and starting with a vowel sound
- les garçons boivent de la bière - feminine
- les garçons boivent de l'alcool - masculine and starting with a vowel sound
If the French is given first: "Les garçons boivent du lait" = "The boys are drinking milk" (these boys, here close to us) or "Boys drink milk" (boys, in general, are used to drink milk).
If the English is given first: "Boys are drinking milk" = "Des garçons boivent du lait" (plural of "a boy is drinking milk" ="un garçon boit du lait").
In front of any uncountable noun (food, drinks but also love, money, etc.) the meaning of "some" (an undefined quantity of a mass thing) is rendered in French by a partitive article.
There are 3 of them:
- du (de+le) in front of a masculine noun starting with a consonant sound = du vin, du temps (time), du vent (wind)
- de la in front of a feminine noun starting with a consonant sound = de la bière, de la chance (luck), de la force (strength)
- de l' in front of any noun starting with a vowel sound = de l'eau (feminine), de l'argent (masculine).
So, partitive articles are formed with the preposition "de" + a definite article.
Because of the hiatus (vowel sound conflict) between U and A.
For a harmonious flow of sounds, such conflicts are conventionally avoided by the use of "de l'" instead of "du" or "de la".
- de l'alcool (masculine), de l'eau (feminine)
A number of small words are elided (drop the vowel and replace it with an apostrophe) for this reason: je, de, me, te, se, ne, ce, que...
"The milk" has to be specific, the one mentioned before or showing on the table. In French "the milk" is "le lait".
The French sentence has "du lait", which means "some milk" as in "an unknown amount of an uncountable thing". In English, "the boys drink milk", with a bare noun has this meaning and you don't need to add "some" or anything else. But in French, the partitive article "du" is required.
"The boys are drinking the milk" has the definite article "the" for a specific milk = "les garçons boivent le lait."
"Les garçons boivent du lait" means that they are drinking "an unknow amount of a mass thing". This meaning translates either to "some milk" or to "milk" without a determiner = the boys are drinking (some) milk.
In front of any uncountable noun (food, drinks but also love, money, etc.) the meaning of "some" (an undefined quantity of a mass thing) is rendered in French by a partitive article.
There are 3 of them:
- du (de+le) in front of a masculine noun starting with a consonant sound = du vin, du temps (time), du vent (wind)
- de la in front of a feminine noun starting with a consonant sound = de la bière, de la chance (luck), de la force (strength)
- de l' in front of any noun starting with a vowel sound = de l'eau (feminine), de l'argent (masculine).
So, partitive articles are formed with the preposition "de" + a definite article.
544
I wish Duo had Customer Services, or something. Due to an account complication, I'm starting to feel very disheartened. Basically, I did something unanticipated. I changed my user name. This was not a problem until days before the new tree, when I was locked out of the discussion pages. Unable to contact anyone, well through my second lap of the French tree, all I could do was pick up an abandoned user name from years ago (I had been very ill). I had no intention of doing anything 'illegal'. My new random user name was a fresh start but it was complicated. Sometimes both names would end up on a discussion page, a situation that I tried to resolve with Duo. You cannot have a conversation with a computer program. As Sally410, still struggling with health issues, I loved my Duolingo French. We got along very well. Everything was golden. With the new tree looming, I was locked out of discussion pages, so dug deep to find my old account. That unleashed the new tree on me as quite a new user. I will now take some days out. I do not think that I like the structure of the first lessons. The teaching seems poorer. I can write je suis un garçon thirty times, sure, but a chimp could probably do that. One beginner was umpteen lessons in without any real understanding of être and Avoir. That is bad. I mean hours and hours of lessons in but not knowing how to say present tense:- (être) I am, you are (X2), he is, we are, they are; (Avoir) I have, you have (X2), he has, we have, they have. So, here we go:-
Être = to be I am = je suis You are = Tu es (always singular, and informal) He is = Il est (this can also refer to it, when it stands in place of a masculine noun, you'll learn this as things progress). Elle est = she is (and it, as above, but a feminine noun stand-in). We are = nous sommes You are = vous êtes (you when plural always, and you either sing or plural when formal) They are = ils/elles sont
Avoir = to have J'ai = I have (j' is short for je) Tu as = you have (remember tu above) Il / Elle a he/she/it has (remember Il/Elle above) Nous avons = we have Vous avez = you have remember vous in être above) Ils/elles ont = they have
I am absolutely battling my spellcheck. I hope this helps. It all opens out, as you learn, I promise and the moderators are fab. Sally 410
You don't need "some" to translate "du lait". The partitive articles "du", "de la" and "de l'" are required in French only.
"Du" is the contraction of "de"+"le", so "le" is not added on top.
"De la" is used with feminine, uncountable nouns.
"De l'" is used before any uncountable noun starting with a vowel sound.