Des autres, some of the other

Question

So while you can’t say ‘J’ai des autres chaussures’ , can you say ‘j’ai besoin des autres chaussures?’  More important, how would you say ‘I have some of the other shoes?’ How is that not ‘des autres chaussures’?

Accepted Answer

J'ai des autres chaussures. -- I have the other shoes.J'ai d'autres chaussures. -- I have other shoes.J'ai besoin des autres chaussures. -- I need the other shoes.J'ai besoin d'autres chaussures. -- I need other shoes.J'ai quelques unes des auters chaussures. -- I have some of the other shoes.

Answer

Thanks. I was getting thrown off by this in the lesson: ‘You can never use des autres to express some other [things]’.

Des autres is permissible but only when referring to a known other quantity.

Answer

Yes, that's right. I guess what the lesson wants to warn you of is that there is no partitive meaning of the article in this case: des autres doesn't mean "some others" but "the others".