French Grammar Lesson: French Articles

Hey, everyone! So I really need to brush up on my French, French grammar, French verbs, and so on. What's even worse is that my high school French teacher taught some things wrong so now they're nasty habits! And, being a French Major, I need to fix it and fix it NOW!!!

So I'm starting from the beginning and going over some easier things to refresh my memory and help those of you that may come upon this article, looking for help.

So there are basically three types of French articles: definite, indefinite, and partitive. Each type has 3 categories that an article falls into being: masculine singular, feminine singular, and masculine and feminine plural. I've colored them to let you see how they blend together and also so you can identify them later on in the lesson. Let's take a look at my table (that probably won't turn out right the first few tries):

                                             Definite         Indefinite             Partitive
Masculine Singular                   le (l')               un                   du (de l')
Feminine Singuluar                   la (l')              une                de la (de l')
Plural (Masc. & Fem.)                 les                des                      des


Occasionally you'll come across a few prepositions and articles that are formed into a contraction. This happens when "de" or "à" comes before the articles "le" or "les". So that's when the following four contractions happen:
"de le" becomes "du"                       (de + le = du)
"de les" becomes "des"                    (de + les = des)
"à le" becomes "au"                         (à + le = au)
"à les" becomes "aux"                      (à + les = aux)

Take for example the following two sentences:

"Nous parlons du concert des Rolling Stones." (We are talking about the concert of the Rolling Stones.)
If you didn't have the contractions, the sentence would have been "Nous parlons de le concert de les Rolling Stones" which would have soundly awfully choppy!

"Ils pensent aux petits chiens." (They are thinking about little dogs.)
Strange sentence, yes, but it gets the point out there! Without the contraction, we would have "Ils pensent à les petits chiens" which sounds a bit . . . strange. Naturally, that only makes the strange sentence worse!

Find the contraction on your own for this one: "Nous allons à le restaurant." (We are going to a restaurant.)
This should have been pretty easy to capture! The "à + le" combination turns it into an "au". Thus, the sentence should be "Nous allons au restaurant."

There are a few cases where you don't make a contraction. As seen above, you use them with the articles "le" or "les" so you never use them with "la" or "l'". You also don't use them when "le" or "les" is a personal pronoun.

Let's take a look at a few examples:

"La vie de l'homme." (Man's life.) [Literally: The life of the man.]
This is pretty simple; "de l'" is kept because it does not need to be made into a contraction.

"La fin de la musique." (The end of the music.)
Once again, this is another where you keep the "de la" because it does not become a contraction.

"Essayez de les manger." (Try to eat them.)
This can be tricky if you don't know your reflexives! So let's break it down a little, shall we?
"Essayez de les manger." (Try to eat them.)
I've highlighted everything that's basically the same in French as in English. The word "de" is the only which is not highlights, but the blue font is matched to the highlighted blue. This is because "de" always comes after the verb "essayer" (to try) when you are trying to do something. We know that "manger" is in it's infinitive form so it means "to eat". Last, "les" is the reflexive of "them" so it goes before the verb "manger". Because "les" is a personal pronoun, the "de + les" combination is not changed to "des" but keeps it's form.

"Elle viens de le rencontrer." (She just ran into him.)
This is similar to our above example. Think about it for a minute and then read on. I'll color-code things again for you.
"Elle viens de le rencontrer." (She just ran into him.)
As a little note, when you're using venir as if to say something has just been done, you must add "de" after the verb. We also see that "recontrer" in this can is showing that this girl "ran into" this guy. But how do we know this? We see that "le" is reflexive before the infinitive form of a verb, showing that this girl ran into "him". So why isn't "de le" turned into "du"? When you have "de + le" it's supposed to turn into "du"! But, remember, in this case . . . "le" is reflexive, thus making it a personal pronoun. So that doesn't count here.

I hope I managed to straighten some things up for you; I know I helped myself. Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to remember. Keep the little table we made up in mind for future lessons. =]

If you have any questions at all about this, please feel free to leave a comment and ask! =]

Beautiful Blessings,
Natasha <3