Generalizing articles

Mike H.B2Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Generalizing articles

Je adore LE Chocolat, but Je mange DU pain.  You are generalizing in both sentences.  I see no difference.  Why is it DU pain?

Asked 3 years ago
CélineNative French expert teacher in KwiziqCorrect answer

Bonjour Mike,

J'adore le pain I love bread (generalising)

Je n'aime pas le pain = I don't like bread (generalising)

Je mange le pain = I eat the bread (specific - this one)

Je mange du (de + le) pain = I eat (some quantity of the) bread (specifying a quantity)

Je ne mange pas de pain = I don't eat bread (general statement)

 

I hope this is helpful.

Bonne journée !

Chris W.C1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor

J'adore le chocolat -- I love chocolate (in general).
Je mange du pain. -- I eat some bread. (specific statement)

The second one is a statement about you eating some bread. You could generalize it to mean "I eat bread" (as a principle). Then you would use de instead of du. It depends on what you want to say.

Alan G.C1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor

This question comes up a lot, Mike. Maybe this Q&A will help:

https://kwiziq.learnfrenchwithalexa.com/questions/view/what-to-use-when-speaking-about-generalities

I'm pretty sure you can't say "je mange de pain", Chris. It's not like "avoir besoin de", for example, where there is already a "de" in the expression, and you can just omit the partitive article.

Generalizing articles

Je adore LE Chocolat, but Je mange DU pain.  You are generalizing in both sentences.  I see no difference.  Why is it DU pain?

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