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Placing words like ’rien’ in French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 17 of 23 24 July 2011 at 1:04am | IP Logged | |||||
Troupe d'élite, the Brazilian film? OK, well that's "Elite Squad" in English. If you were saying Squad of the elite of [something or other], that would be ...de l'élite de... Here, they're not presented as a particular élite of anything specific, just a generally elite group. But that's probably not clear enough.... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| JLA Triglot Newbie France Joined 4897 days ago 25 posts - 33 votes Speaks: French*, English, German Studies: Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 18 of 23 24 July 2011 at 9:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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Oh, now I understand what you mean.
To be honest I don't think I would say "troupe de l'élite", it would never really sound right to me (and I am by no means a purist). I would rather say something like "a troupe formée de l'élite". They are no grammar rule to force me to do that since you would say "un groupe d'étudiants" for example and not "un groupe formé d'étudiants". I guess it has to do with the fact that "troupe d'élite" is already somewhat perceived as a semantic unit with a specific meaning, but I might be wrong :) I also wanted to amend my previous post because after thinking about it a lot, I noticed it was inaccurate. I said to never use "de le, de la, de les..." and it is only partially true. Here are a few examples: - Je bois du jus d'orange. (I drink orange juice - contracted) - Je bois de l'orange. (I drink orange (juice) - expanded) But, to make things less easy: - Je bois du jus de citron. (I drink citrus juice - contracted) - Je bois du citron. (I drink citrus (juice) - still contracted) I tried the same sentence with several beverages but I could not find any rule to explain the differences. You have a lot of this anomalies: - J'achête du bois. (I buy a piece of wood - contracted) - J'achête de l'eau. (I buy some water - expanded) It seems that the groupe "de le, de la, de les..." is always contracted when it introduce the complement of a noun though: - un morceau de bois, une tranche de pain, un verre d'eau... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 19 of 23 24 July 2011 at 10:54am | IP Logged | |||||
That is not a contraction of "de + <article>", it's just plain "de". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Haldor Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5615 days ago 103 posts - 122 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Swedish Studies: French, Spanish | Message 20 of 23 28 July 2011 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 21 of 23 28 July 2011 at 11:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
You don't normally want "de" here, because difficile is an adjective, and if you're trying to say "You have made a difficult choice", well, just stick the adjective right next to the noun -- choix difficile. The reason the film is Troup d'Élite is because the French word Élite is a noun, not an adjective. (The English is also arguably a noun, although many dictionaries list it as both an adjective and a noun.) In du bien, "bien" is an abstract noun. "Le bien" is a general good, such as in "le bien public" ("the public good"). Edited by Cainntear on 28 July 2011 at 11:56pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Haldor Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5615 days ago 103 posts - 122 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Swedish Studies: French, Spanish | Message 22 of 23 27 September 2011 at 10:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
And this goes for which French words? I assume I can count 'le mal'. In fact I think I've read that they use phrases like 'le conditionnel'( the conventional or 'what is conventional').. Je me trompe, ou non? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Homogenik Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4824 days ago 314 posts - 407 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 23 of 23 28 September 2011 at 1:19am | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't think you can ever use "de le" (unless le is a pronoun such as in "j'ai envie de le faire"). Du is the meaning
de le would have that's why we say it's a contraction of "de le". Generally, le will introduce something precise and du something more general. For instance, j'ai acheté du beurre (I bought [some] butter) ; passe-moi le beurre (give me the butter [this butter right here and now]). Le conditionnel refers to the verbal mode. Sometimes though you can use adjectives as a noun. For instance : Cet homme est grand (adjective) ; Viens ici mon grand (comme here my dear or my boy) ; Eille, le grand, écoute-moi bien! (hey tall guy, listen well!) (both second examples are nouns). That's ok for grand because it is also a noun, but you can sometimes use adjectives as nouns even when they're not (on the condition that there's not a word already corresponding to the said adjective). That can also sometimes happen with verbs in certain contexts but I think usually it's just a mistake. For instance saying le vouloir is a mistake when one should say la volonté. This process is called substantiation (substantivation). The adjectives that are "substantivated" are usually so at the masculine. For instance : beau, le beau (not the same meaning as la beauté). In this case, le beau has a sense of something more conceptual (or philosophical) than la beauté. Edited by Homogenik on 28 September 2011 at 1:49am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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