What is the difference between the usage of “des” and “les”. All examples seem to be using “des” and “les” for “some”. Is one usage more abstract than the other. Most grammar books and websites tell learners to use “des” for specific countable things and “les” for general uncountable things. I look forward to your feedback.
davidmich
Découvrez des livres proches des vos goûts
Découvrez des livres, sites Internet, articles relatifs aux campagnes électorales…
but
Découvrez les livres. Découvrez toutes les photos
Découvrez les livres de la série « Chair de poule » JEUNESSE
Découvrez les livres actuellement en vente sur le site autour de chez vous, dans votre établissement scolaire, dans toutes les matières.
Hmm. I’m not brilliant at French and I probably shouldn’t answer but I think I know this one. You can think of it as general vs. specific.
Des livres in your first two examples used to mean “Discover some books,” either those that suit your taste – the speaker doesn’t know what your taste is, it will vary, it’s not a set group of books, and I’m guessing in context it’s generic text for searching? – or some books about election campaigns. From your perspective, the books haven’t been identified yet, and it’s also likely part of an ever-changing list.
In your three Les livres examples, the first is too brief for me to figure out the context. But the second two are referring to a) books in the Goosebumps series (which is very specific), or b) books that you have at home or maybe are already at your school that are also on sale at… some store? A school? I might be mistranslating that but is this a place that buys back textbooks? So you know what books you’re looking to sell, presumably.
Anyway the point is, in both the “les” examples, we’re talking about the books or group of books that you already know about or that the writer has already described/listed to you. It’s a bit nebulous but French is quite a nuanced language.
A better French speaker will hopefully make more sense. My French is best used for understanding/translating opera librettos or song lyrics, since that’s mainly what I used it for waaay back when.
Yes, Choie and Chefguy have it. “Des” is more general and “undefined”, while “les” is specific. The equivalence with “some” and “(plural) the” is correct, although I’d say you can also use “des” where in English you’d just omit the article altogether.
So : “Discover books, websites and news articles about the electoral campaign” is a des, but “Discover all the books in this series” is a les
Oops. That must be a mistake - should be “de vos goûts”.
In the original example, the distinction is between (implicitly) some or a general concept of X and (implicitly)any or potentially all that might be available, so
Find (some) books you might like
Find (some) books, websites, articles about the electoral campaigns
Find (any) books. Find all the photos.
Find (any) books in the series…
Find (any) books currently on sale on the site, near you, in your school, in all subjects.
Instead of either de vos goûts or des vos goûts, perhaps dès vos goûts was intended. (I’ve not been to France for 30 years and my French is very rusty.)
and my French is very rusty.)