"David ne sait cuisiner que le chou."
Translation:David only knows how to cook cabbage.
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I think you could also say David doesn't know how to cook anything but cabbage.
Yep, you can say that too, but saying "David ne sait cuisiner que des choux" is mostly used here ( In France )
I sometimes have real difficulty with the computer voice, hearing the difference between de and du and le and la. Here as well, I would have sworn he said "la chou". Am I the only one?
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I have submitted David knows only how to cook cabbage as a correct answer. Edit: In fact, one of the next answers is She made only one cup of coffee. (She only made one cup of coffee would be equally correct.)
Your answer means that Davide knows completely nothing; except cabbage-cooking. Basically he is a weird robot. But the sentence is that he knows how to cook only one thing: cabbage.
Then again: I'm nitpicking. And Duo shouldn't be nitpicking. Since most of us have English as a second language.
Excellent... .. the word the 'que' is in front of is what is being restricted... le chou.!!
But I kinda dont know if the syntax for edward's sentence would then contradict grammar rules word order. A negation like Personne ne can come totally before the verb. Can the 'restrictive' ne que follow that same pattern. David ne que sait cuisiner .... the only thing david knows is to cook....and then that would be different from David ne sait que cuisiner.... David only knows how to cook cabbage (he doesn't know how to eat or dice it or grow cabbage)
Why is it: ne.... que le chou, mais ne ... que de la laitue. When with and when without 'de'
Sentence 1: David knows how to cook ONLY cabbage.(That is the exact meaning of this sentence ... the only thing David KNOWS TO COOK is cabbage...even though we say David only knows how to cook cabbage and get our meaning across(. Put ANY CABBAGE in the world and David knows how to cook it. So he knows how to cook ALL(types) cabbages in the world not some type(red for instance) cabbage. Hence LE(for generalization) not the partitive de+(le or la). But if I remember the other sentence. You will be hungry if all you eat is lettuce. He is not eating a SPECIFIC lettuce/he wont eat ALL the lettuce in the world/so it has to be the partitive de+(le or la).. All goes back to you can't have a naked noun in french. I m buying apples in ENGLISH must be I am buying 'qualifier' apples in FRENCH. The default qualifier is always 'de+(le/la) unless....like specificity/generalization/cardinal determiner...etc etc.
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dbguy49 above is correct. More simply, perhaps, de means of or some of. So: J’aime le lait - I like (all) milk. J’aimerais du lait. I would like some milk.
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I am a native English speaker. Roemer's response is correct. However, Duo's translation is one that is very frequently used and accepted, depending on the context.
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Truth be told, it makes no difference where you put "only" in English. I don't think it makes any difference where you put "que" in French either.