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De vacances or des vacances? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 1 of 6 22 February 2012 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I thought that when speaking of holidays, you used the plural article: les vacances or des vacances. However, lesson 19 of Assimil uses de vacances twice. Once in the dialogues:
Je ne vais pas prendre de vacances cette année. And once in the fill in the blanks exercise: Ils ne vont pas prendre de vacances en août. Was I wrong? Are there variations allowed? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 2 of 6 22 February 2012 at 4:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Because it's always "pas de". Je ne prends pas/plus/jamais de vacances.
Same goes for "beaucoup de" or "un peu de". Edited by Arekkusu on 22 February 2012 at 4:51pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6086 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 3 of 6 22 February 2012 at 5:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
I always have trouble remembering the rules for articles! @Jeffers: I found some more adverbs of quantity: assez de, combien de, trop de, moins de But as I was looking these up I found an exception and I have a question.. Arekkusu what's the rule on la plupart, bien..., la moitié.., le tiers, le quart? My book says "article + du/ de la/ des", is that correct? Sometimes I see different uses of these and it's confusing sometimes. I guess context is everything! For example, are these correct translations? tiers monde - third world le tiers du monde - a third of the world Edited by Sunja on 22 February 2012 at 5:54pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 4 of 6 22 February 2012 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
All the examples you quote in the last paragraph indeed take du/de la/des. Note that the words moitié, tiers, quart, etc., behave differently if you use "un": une moitié de pomme, un quart de livre. The meaning would be half of an apple or a quarter of a pound. Half of THE apple would be la moitié de la pomme. Edited by Arekkusu on 22 February 2012 at 6:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| rapp Senior Member United States Joined 5732 days ago 129 posts - 204 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Spanish | Message 5 of 6 22 February 2012 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In lesson 6 there is a note that says "Du, de la, des becomes simply de in the negative: Vous n'avez pas de fromage ? Vous n'avez pas de cigarettes ? etc"
So in the sentence "I'm not taking a vacation this year", this rule applies and des changes to de. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 6 of 6 22 February 2012 at 9:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thank you to Arekkusu and rapp, you've cleared it up for me.
Clear as mud, but clearer than it was! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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