ne…pas de

Question

I’ve always thought that in a negation the preposition ‘de’ is used, so in « I don’t waste water » I wrote « je ne gaspille pas d’eau » but this was corrected to « je ne gaspille pas l’eau ». My thought pattern was supported in « when I can’t cycle » - « quand je ne peux pas faire de vélo » (given that : to cycle = faire du vélo). Can this be explained ?

Accepted Answer

Hi Anita,
Just to add to Jim's answer -
in general terms, you would say 'l'eau' but if you talked about a specific situation you might use the partitive 
Quand nous campons, je demande aux enfants de ne pas gaspiller d'eau = When we are camping I ask the children not to waste any water
Hope this helps!

Answer

Hi Anita,I suspect that to write "I don't waste water" should be "Je ne gaspille pas l'eau" because you need to express "water" in a general sense rather than "any water".I do agree with you however about "faire (faire de qch) du vélo" where vélo is a countable noun  --  but water is an uncountable noun.Perhaps this is the answer?Bonne JournéeJim