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Level 27 - De / Du / De La / De L' / Des

De or d' before a vowel or silent h means 'of' or 'from' and is extremely common in French. Whereas in English we indicate possession with an apostrophe and the letter 's' (e.g. Paul's car') in French we use de.

le maire de la ville
la voiture de Paul
le train arrive de Paris
   the mayor of the town
Paul's car
the train arrives from Paris

When de is followed by la or l' there is no problem - we simply say de la and de l'. But when the word de needs to be followed by le and les (plural), de + le becomes du and de + les becomes des.

Here are some more examples.

du bureau
des bureaux

de l'hôtel
des hôtels

de la maison
des maisons

de l'école
des écoles
   of the office / from the offices
of the offices / from the offices

of the hotel / from the hotel
of the hotels / from the hotels

of the house / from the house
of the houses / from the houses

of the school / from the school
of the schools / from the schools

Phrases containing de

d'abord
d'accord
d'avance
de bonne heure
de bonne humeur
de l'autre coté
de la part de qui?
de mauvaise humeur
de rien
de temps en temps
d'habitude
du moins
d'une grande valeur

à partir de
au sujet de
autour de
en dehors de
en face de
en provenance de
en train de
hors de
loin de
près de
  at first
OK
in advance
early
in a good mood
on the other side
who's calling? (on the telephone)
in a bad mood
you're welcome (rien = nothing)
from time to time
usually
at least
of great value

from, starting from
about
around
outside of
opposite
coming from
in the process of
outside of
far from
near to

Some (partitive articles)

In Level 2 we learnt that 'some' in French is des. But what about when we mean 'some' without it being plural, for example 'some water' or 'some bread'? If we are talking about an amount of a substance or idea which is not plural we are talking about mass nouns. Water, bread, petrol, gold, anger and time are all examples of mass nouns. But none of them is plural so des cannot be used. Instead we use du, de la or de l'. So in French, 'of the' and 'some' are the same. Here are some examples.

du temps
du pain
du feu

de la crème
de la valeur
de la fumée

de l'espace
 de l'eau
de l'huile
  some time
some bread
some fire

some cream
some value
some smoke

some space
some water
some oil

Some learners find it difficult to know which word for 'some' they should choose. First, ask yourself if you can count a number of the objects. If you can count them, some is des as in des ordinateurs ('some computers'). You can't count fire, smoke or water which is why they need du, de la and de l' respectively.

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