In english, it is better to say "they are writing some leters", thus some will be translated to des

'sont' means '(they) are' and comes from 'être' ('to be'), so if you said 'ils sont gentils' it would mean that 'they are nice', 'elles sont laides' means 'they are ugly' etc.

'écrivent' means '(they) write/are writing' and comes from 'écrire' ('to write') so it already contains who is doing what. That is why it's 'elles écrivent des lettres', because:

ils/elles= they

écrivent = (they) write/are writing

des lettres = letters

I hope this helps ^^.

Hi adobi. Since the word 'écrivent' is the plural way to say 'are writing', to say "ils sont écrivent des lettres" would be like saying the word 'are' twice. I hope this helps you to understand it better.

hi censoredreality!!

lets say, "Elle a des crayons."

means "She has pencils." or "She has some pencils." It's not specified exactly which pencils she has. In this case, des is used as the "article indéfini". It's basically the plural form of "un":

"Elle a un crayon." — "She has a pencil." "Elle a le crayon." — "She has the pencil."

"Elle a les crayons."

means "She has the pencils." it refers to a specific set of pencils, or it may be referring to a set of pencils previously mentioned in the conversation.

So there may be exceptions to the rule, but use "les" when you are mentioning a specific group of objects, or objects that were already brought up in the conversation. Use "des" when the specific group hasn't been brought up before, or when the group itself isn't important, but the objects are.

I hope this helps!

"Lettres" is plural so "des" is used. De + les = des

This article should help: http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/preposition_de.htm

Sorry I cannot explain more, I am just starting out myself :)

"les" is for things that can be counted. "de" is for things that cannot be counted. you would say "de l'eau/some water" because you can't count water. however you can say "des rivieres/some rivers" because rivers can be counted. pay attention to the english as well: "some water" singular (regardless of the amount); "some rivers" plural.

I might be wrong (I probably am) but the way I see it is that des would be like des jupes or des fruits- it would mean some skirts or some fruits. De on the other hand means of something. For example beaucoup de sel or in peu de lait. Please please correct me if I am wrong in this way of explaining the difference, but I have seen this pattern and I hope it helps to explain it to you.

Lettres is plural, hence 'des' as a contraction of 'de les' rather than 'de le' for a singular noun.

You are probably talking about "leurs" which means "Their". "Their writing letters" doesn't make sense. "Their" is not the same as "They're" even though they sound the same. "Their" is a possessive article. When you say "Their letters" you are talking about someone's letters. If you say "They're letters" you are saying "Those things over there are letters."

I think there are two types of "des".
One is "des = de+les" ("Il parle des robes rouges" - "He is talking about the red dresses").
The other is simply "des", the indefinite article used for plural nouns ("Elles écrivent des lettres" - "They are writing (some) letters").
https://grammar.collinsdictionary.com/french-easy-learning/the-indefinite-article-un-une-and-des

I'm relatively new, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but in answer to your question, Michel Thomas describes it well when he says that "there is no "am" ing, no "is" ing or no "are" ing when you translate to french". In other words, you never use "am, is or are" before an 'ing' word. For example, english says "I AM running", "you ARE fighting", "he IS kicking". The french translation MEANS the same as these, but you simply use "I run" to mean "i am running", or "you fight", to mean "you are fighting" etc.
Therefore, "elles SONT ecrivent" in your example would be incorrect as it breaks the no "are-ing" rule. Instead, "Elles écrivent" already means 'they are writing'. You never put "am, is, or are" before 'ing' words.

If u want to write say ecrive with the accent on e , long press ‘e‘ in your keypad and u will be provided with the accents . Better u can go to ur settings and also include the french language “ française“

No. You cannot. The preposition "de" like the article "le" has multiple forms depending on the gender and number of the words it sits next to. It's changed accordingly de + la = de la de + le = du de + les = des In this context, the word "lettres" is plural, and hence if we were to break the sentence apart into components, would like like this "de les lettres" As demonstrated above, we need to combine the preposition de with the article les to get the word des. Hence it would have to be "des lettres." However if the sentence were different referencing only one letter, then you would be correct. I hope that helps!

"Des" means "some" for objects that can be counted. It is the plural of un/une. So « Elles écrivent des lettres » = "They are writing (some) letters". In English we usually omit "some" (they are writing letters) but in French it is required.