1 – The French Partitive ARTICLES

When you are talking about a portion of an item (food), or something that cannot be quantified (e.g. qualities, like patience), use a partitive article:


du (+ masculine word)

de la (+ feminine word),

de l’ (followed by a vowel),

des (+ plural word).

2 – Du, De La, De L’, Des = Unspecified Quantity

The French partitive articles express a notion of quantity: a vague one, a non-specific one.

Important: these articles are often used after the verbs vouloir (“Je voudrais du vin”) or avoir (“J’ai des chats”) and with food.

In French, you need to “accompany” your word with something.

Je voudrais de l’eau, s’il vous plait. (some water, maybe a glass, or maybe a bottle…)

Le professeur a de la patience. (patience ; you are not saying how much patience the teacher has, just that he/she has some)

Voici du gâteau. (some of it, not the whole cake)

To describe an unspecified plural quantity, use “des” (both feminine and masculine)
. This tells you there is more than one item, but again, it’s a vague plural quantity (could be 2, could be 10,000 or more)… This “des” usually APPLIES to whole items, that you could count, but decided not to.

J’ai des Euros. (more than one, but I am not telling exactly how MANY)

Je vais acheter des pommes. (I’m going to buy apples. In English, we’d probably won’t use an article there. Maybe some, but not necessarily. In French, you need to use “des”)

Elle a des amies formidables (she has (some) great friends)

3 – More About Translating “Some” In French

In English, the word “some” is used for unspecified quantity (I would like some milk) but also as a derogatory adjective (he went home with some girl).

In French, you would never say “il est rentré CHEZ lui AVEC de la fille”…He didn’t go home with an unspecified quantity of a girl!! So be careful, translation doesn’t always work.