Hi Aurélie: Maybe you could put some clarification in the lessons re. the above le/du question. Unfortunately, it falls in the middle of the partitive and the definite article lessons. As your examples above, I had always seen that the definite article was used for general cases, the classic being “J’aime le thé”. But to me, “Je bois le thé” seems just as general (and same meaning). As would “Je mange le pain”. But it seems that for verbs involving consumption of the item that the partitive should be used; as in one of the lesson questions “Je bois du jus d’orange au petit-déjeuner.” That sure seems general to me. Would “I like tea at breakfast” now be “du thé” ? Thank you.

Following on from the answer below; how do you then say "I like THE carrots" (i.e. the carrots I have on my plate right now)?

To say, 'I like carrots', you have to use the definite article,  les and say -

J'aime les carottes 

It sort of indicates in French that you like all the carrots in the world. very strange!

Des is a partitive article meaning 'some' so you might say -

Je voudrais des carottes,  s'il vous plait = I'd like some carrots, please

or 

Donnez-moi des carottes = Give me some carrots

For example if you were to say 'I like carrots', can't you say j'aime des carottes as well as j'aime les carottes ?

Or do they mean different things?

There seems to be some kind of error associated with the text input for Studyplan questions based on this lesson.

Here is the question:

"_________  des légumes." (Carrots are vegetables.)

HINT: "carottes"

[End of question]

I type the following reasonable answer:

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

On my screen, as soon as I type the thirteenth "x", the first "x" is slightly truncated at the left.  (The remainder of the question is pushed to the right, which is expected behaviour.)

If I arrow left to completely expose the first "x", the final "x" then becomes partially truncated at the right. Adding further x's are correctly expanding the text box, but either the initial character or the final character are partially truncated.

If I adjust the screen font size using Ctrl++ or Ctrl+-, the truncation persists.

Additional question:  Why are there quotes round some of the questions (see my example above, with the final quotes after "légumes").

On the specific Studyplan test page that I'm currently looking at, 2 questions have quotes and 8 questions have no quotes. Without being condescending, I'm sure the average guy will not notice any difference, but for techies who are trained to look for tiny clues (think "Boeing 337 Max"), these things can be irritating if they are unintentional and random. I spent some time trying to figure out what I was missing.

Thanks.

or 'elle a les cheveux longs et blond'. I wonder if 2 of the following are correct also?

elle a des cheveux longs et blonds

elle a les longs cheveux blonds

In this case, I refer musique as general thing. Am I correct?

In this Weekend Workout (5-10-2018) in the 'Californian Dream' level C1 quiz we are asked to translate:

'But what fascinated her the most remained this image of a land both arid and lush, which comprised desert, forests, ocean and mountains,'

Two possible anwers were given (see below) one with articles and the other without articles.

Is this perhaps because the one with articles relates to general things BUT the one without articles relates to specific things (a specific forest, say, rather than forests in general)? Could you please advise/explain.

Answer 1. qui comprenait le désert, les forêts, l'océan et les montagnes,

Answer 2. qui comprenait désert, forêts, océan et montagnes,

It looks like sometimes you use the partitive article 'des' even when referring to general things, for example:

Le vin blanc me donne des maux de tête.

or the following sentence from an exercise: 'J'étudierais un sujet qui me plaît, en rencontrant des gens intéressants

Can someone explain this please?