"I want most of the bowls, because half of them is not enough."

Translation: Mi volas la plejparton de la bovloj, ĉar duono de ili ne estas sufiĉa.

[Benkanderson]

Why doesn't this us da? I thought da was for amounts. I put "mi volas la plejparton da bovloj"

[salivanto]

Da is used to connect a measuring word with a thing measured as long as the thing measured is indefinite. If it's definite, then you use "de".

[atimin]

Partoprenas en la demando! Kial 'de'?

[Jepkatoj]

I don't understand this well at all. Why do we use plejparto and not just plej for most? Why is there a "la" before plejparton? Why is the accusative (?) -n on plejparto and not bovloj? Thanks.

[Luis_Domingos]

It translates as "I want the majority of the bowls" (that's why you have the definite article and "la plejparto", the majority; "la plejparto de", most of). You don't use the accusative after almost all prepositions.

[Jepkatoj]

Thanks again :) I think I understand now.

[djzeus01]

The entire construction appears to have been lifted from French (and possibly elsewhere), where it's "la plupart des boules" ("des" being short for "de + les").

[Miaoumiam]

*"bols", not "boules".

[deactivated user]

Ok, I'm confused. I put "la plejparton da la bovloj" because in the previous sentence it corrected me and put "la plejparto da la francoj". Can someone explain why SOMETIMES it's "de" and other times it's "da", because I simply do not understand.

[salivanto]

Short answer, because in Esperanto you never say "da la" -- it's always either "da" or "de la".

[lyubomirv]

I want to know this as well. Why is 'da' wrong here?

[Amikema]

Can I say 'plejmulton' also?

[Wallydogdirt]

Why doesn't 'bovloj' have the accusative?

[alex.maslov]

Это же родительный падеж, для него окончание '-n' не используется (becouse it is genetive)

[FranciumSenpai]

Why does Duolingo automatically do some of the assignments for me lol

[AnnikaQED]

Why do you say "du da ili", but "duono de ili"?

[salivanto]

First - I'm curious where you're seeing this. A little more context might get you a better answer.

A good place to start would be my blog post from last month (see link) where I talk about de and da in some detail.

I am not convinced that it's possible to make a general rule as you have done here. There are situations where we would say "duono da" and there are situations where we would say "du de". In this particular case de ili is correct because ili refers to la bovoloj and is definite.

I'm not convinced that "du da" is a valid expression. (I'm not convinced that it isn't.) I've looked for an example of it used that way so I can put my answer in context, but I haven't found one yet. If you could let me know what sentence you're looking at and where you're seeing it, I could do a better job of explaining it for you (or of letting you know why the example is wrong, if it's wrong.)