A couple of weeks ago, I had a question under one of my youtube videos.
And this question was about the difference between UN and DE.
So let’s talk about that.
Author : Marie Drouvin
Salut! Je suis Marie and I'm on a mission to make learning French simple. You can find me on Youtube, or here, on this blog. And if you want to know more about how to learn French, take a look at my book.
UN is easy, it's an article.
An article is a small word you place in front of a noun to say if you are talking about a specific object or not.
UN means you aren’t talking about a specific object – it’s an INDEFINITE ARTICLE. You are talking about AN object, not THE object.
un chien : a dog
UN becomes UNE if the noun is feminine.
une souris : a mouse
And it becomes DES if the noun is plural.
des chiens : dogs
You can use it, for example, when you don’t know or don’t want to say which dog you saw.
J’ai vu un chien. I saw a dog.
When you want to say there is A dog in your garden.
Il y a un chien dans le jardin.
Or if someone has A dog.
Il a un chien. He has a dog.
DE, on the other hand, is a little bit more complex.
DE is actually two words in one.
It’s a preposition.
It’s used to introduce new information. Like ownership, description, or to introduce a period of time.
C’est la voiture DE Jeanne. It’s Jeanne’s car.
Tu veux un verre DE vin? Do you want a glass of wine?
J’ai cours DE 8h à 9h. I have classes from 8am to 9am.
Many verbs call for the preposition DE after them – and you’ll find plenty in my VERBS AND PREPOSITION WORKSHOP – which you can use to learn more than 100 verbs and their prepositions.
But DE is also an ARTICLE.
Think of DE and DE as two different words that are spelled the same way.
The article DE is a PARTITIVE ARTICLE.
A partitive article is a small word that tells us that the noun after it either: can’t be counted. Meaning we don’t know how many there are. OR it’s a piece of what the word represents. Meaning it’s a bit of something bigger.
For example, you’ll use DE when you take SOME pie.
It’s not one pie, two pies. It’s some pie.
Je prends DE la tarte.
What’s peculiar with partitive articles is that you generally need a second article after it.
Je prends de LA tarte. I take some (of the) pie.
And that depending on the gender and number of that article, you need to combine them together to form a new word.
DE + LE = DU
DE + LES = DES
Tu veux du café? Do you want some coffee?
J’ai mangé des crêpes. I ate some crepes.
There is however ONE EXCEPTION to adding a second article after DE.
And that was the basis of the question I received.
When your sentence is negative.
For example, in the sentence.
Il n’y a pas de place. – There isn’t space.
PLACE is a feminine noun. And so we would assume that we’d need the article LA.
BUT – because in fact there ISN’T space, there is no need to add an article.
So when you make a negative sentence, the article drops and…
Je mange DE LA viande → becomes → Je ne mange pas DE viande.
Il boit DU (DE LE) café → becomes → Il ne boit pas de café.
Which is why ‘Il n’y a pas un médecin dans l’hôpital’ is not technically correct. And that you would need to say ‘Il n’y a pas DE médecin dans l’hôpital’.
Note that all of this is extremely theoretical.
That when you speak, you shouldn’t have to think so damn hard about whether you need an article or not.
It should come naturally to you.
Because you have listened and read so much French that you have learned the patterns.
If you find yourself a bit lost right now, take a moment to watch this video about how why Bradley Cooper speaks French so well.
And steal some of his ways to be more confident when you speak French.
