Du, De La, Des: Expressing Quantities in French

www.thoughtco.com/du-de-la-des-1368977

Learn How to Express Quantities in French

The articles du, de la, and de l'– are called "partitive articles" in French.

Unspecified Singular Quantity: Du, de La, de L’–

• du (+ masculine word)
• de la (+ feminine word)
• de l’ – (followed by a vowel)

Examples

• 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 the cake; not the whole cake)

Here is some cake," rather than "some cakes,"

 

More Than One, but Unspecified Plural Quantity: Des

Examples:

• 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 any words before "apples." Maybe "some," but in French, you need to use “des”)
• Elle a des amis formidables (she has [some] great friends)

Some food items are usually referred to as singular, although they are really plural. Like "rice."

 

expressed using the singular masculine, “le riz”. If you need to count each grain, then you’d use the expression, “grain de riz” 

 

more often, you’d say something like “j’achète du riz” ( I am buying [some] rice).