French Note 36 Contracted articles
Remember that in French , whenever the articles " le" and " les " are preceded by the prepositions , " de"'and "à" , contracted articles are formed in the following manner.
De + le = du
De + les = des
À +le = au
À + les = aux
Observe the following examples
C'est la voiture du médecin .
This is the car of the doctor.
Or
This is the doctor's car.
Don't say , " voiture de le médecin "
Ce sont les maisons des voisins.
These are the houses of the neighbours.
Or
These are the neighbours' houses.
Don't say , " les maisons de les voisins. "
Je parle au père de Jean .
I am speaking to the father of John.
Or
I am speaking to John' s father.
Don't say " à le père de Jean "
Pierre a renoncé aux habitudes gênantes.
Peter gave up his irritating habits.
Don't say " à les habitudes gênantes ."
In the next note,let us study " Partitive articles "
There is always some confusion between indefinite article " des" and the partitive article , " des ".
There is also confusion between " du" as contracted article and " du" as partitive article.
We can study all these problems in the next note.
Happy learning
Sayee Jayaraman
4/01/2015
08/02/2015
No comments:
Post a Comment