Hello, Can you please help me with this: "près de Madagascar et de l'île Maurice.". Why is it not "du île Maurice" ? because "de+le" = "du" isn't it?
près de Madagascar et de l'île Maurice.
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Vincent, ‘ de le ‘ contracts to du ‘ but ‘de l’….’ does not contract. Same situation applies to ‘ à l’ ….‘ - no contraction occurs.
See lesson link :
Hi Vincent,
The noun 'île' is feminine so it cannot be 'du'. It isn't 'de la' because of the vowel.
Hope this helps!
Just to add to Maarten's point -- the preposition is près de in its entirety. The "de" in this case is part of the preposition.
https://www.wordreference.com/fren/pr%C3%A8s
Cécile, to avoid confusion in case anyone reads this and thinks our responses are conflicting, even when ‘ de l’…. ‘ occurs in the masculine eg ‘ de l’hôtel ‘ , ‘de l’…. does not contract to ‘ du ‘.
Both points are important here, one is specific to the situation with ‘ l’île ‘, the other to the general question raised about contraction.
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