# French usage question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 28, 2012, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348 "2012-05-28T15:06:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2012, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/21 "2012-05-29T15:14:13Z")
> [@Svejk\_1](#): > > Also, how is quelque an indefinite article? Un and une are indefinite articles, quelque is pretty simply an adjective as far as I can tell To be precise, it’s an indefinite adjective - at least according to my Collins Robert. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2012, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/22 "2012-05-29T16:22:57Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > The partitive article _de_ (in this case elided with the masculine definite article _le_ to produce _du_) restricts the desire expressed in the sentence to a more limited (but still unspecified) quantity. Not elided, combined. “de le” becomes “du”; elision would be a word that gets dropped. If someone says “went shopping” instead of “I went shopping”, they’re elliding the subject (note that the first structure is perfectly common usage in some contexts). ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2012, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/23 "2012-05-29T18:11:55Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > To be precise, it’s an indefinite adjective - at least according to my Collins Robert. Yes, I mistyped, sorry. \*\* Švejk \*\*you seem to want to argue meaning versus translation which is the crux of the OP. “Je veux de pommes” translates literally to “I want some apples” not “I want apples” …period. Secondly, in French there are four uses of “de”; as a prepositon, a indefinite article, a partitive article or in conjunction with a definite article. Since I have been fluently bilingual for over 40 years, personally I do not even bother with French or English. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2012, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/24 "2012-05-29T18:15:54Z")
First, there is no translation without meaning; second, don’t let the fact that the closeness in structure between French and English lets word-by-word translations (as opposed to sentence-based ones) produce something which is generally understandable; third, your last line makes no sense. ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2012, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/25 "2012-05-29T18:38:29Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > First, there is no translation without meaning; second, don’t let the fact that the closeness in structure between French and English lets word-by-word translations (as opposed to sentence-based ones) produce something which is generally understandable; third, your last line makes no sense. I meant that I don’t differentiate or translate between the two. When I’m speaking, reading, or writing in French I’m thinking in French and not translating from English, and vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2012, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/26 "2012-05-29T18:43:52Z")
Ah, where I come from that’s just how we define _bilingüe_. You’re bilingual once you think in whichever of two languages you’re using; until you reach that level, you “know” the second language but you’re not bilingual. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2012, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/27 "2012-05-29T18:51:56Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > _Je veux du fromage_. If I remember my high school French teachers correctly, the sentence _Je veux fromage_ would mean something more like “I want [all the] cheese [that exists, has existed, or will exist in the world]”. It sounds like you may have had the same outstanding French teacher I did! Did he also say, when a student turned vowels into diphthongs, “_Vous parlez commes les vaches Américains_”? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2012, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/28 "2012-05-29T21:17:05Z")
**septimus** , the intent was kind of the opposite, but my French teacher used to tell us “you’re in the beginner course, I don’t care whether you sound like Spanish cows so long as you _speak in French_”. Mooo… ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/29 "2012-05-30T07:15:41Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > It sounds like you may have had the same outstanding French teacher I did! Depends - did you go to a Catholic school in southeastern NH sometime in the mid-1980s? ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/30 "2012-05-30T07:29:15Z")
And just for the absolute sheer unadulterated hell of it, an explanation from [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_articles_and_determiners#Partitive_article). **Nava** , elision is also a phonological phenomenon (examples from Wikipedia [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elision_%28French%29)). I yield the point that _de_+_le_ =\> _du_ is not elision, but will say you’re wrong on the point that elision is only the dropping of words. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/31 "2012-05-30T07:54:23Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > Depends - did you go to a Catholic school in southeastern NH sometime in the mid-1980s? No. Public school in California mid-1960’s. The French teacher I mentioned, deceased now for many years, really was outstanding, with students consistently winning national honors. But Googling turns up only another award-winning French teacher, herself now approaching retirement, who describes my teacher as her mentor and inspiration. [hijack] There seems to be a lamentable gap in Googleable info. Lots of minor 19th-century people show up in online bios, newspapers, etc. And many young people, I’ll guess, have huge Internet presences (Facebook etc.). But in between … people once of some importance often show zero hits. ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/32 "2012-05-30T11:16:30Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Ah, where I come from that’s just how we define _bilingüe_. You’re bilingual once you think in whichever of two languages you’re using; until you reach that level, you “know” the second language but you’re not bilingual. Yes, bilingual and bilingüe are the same. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/33 "2012-05-30T11:33:55Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > No. Public school in California mid-1960’s. > > The French teacher I mentioned, deceased now for many years, really was outstanding, with students consistently winning national honors. Not the same man, then. I have circumstantial evidence that my French Honors teacher may still, in fact, be alive. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/34 "2012-05-30T12:41:12Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > It sounds like you may have had the same outstanding French teacher I did! > Did he also say, when a student turned vowels into diphthongs, “_Vous parlez commes les vaches Américains_”? 😃 Comment parlez les vaches Francaises? Disent-ils ‘Meauuuux’? ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/35 "2012-05-30T12:52:43Z")
Meuh. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/36 "2012-05-30T13:12:06Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Comment parlez les vaches Francaises? Disent-\*\*ils \*\*‘Meauuuux’? In the spirit of this thread: **Elles** disent “meuh” ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/37 "2012-05-30T13:16:03Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > _Je veux du fromage_. If I remember my high school French teachers correctly, the sentence _Je veux fromage_ would mean something more like “I want [all the] cheese [that exists, has existed, or will exist in the world]”. The partitive article _de_ (in this case elided with the masculine definite article _le_ to produce _du_) restricts the desire expressed in the sentence to a more limited (but still unspecified) quantity. According to my Collins Robert dictionary, _de_ does not always need to be translated into English, but it sure as hell needs to be there in the French. This is exactly what I came to post, though my college French was many moons ago. ETA: having now read the entire thread, it should have been “many moooooooooons ago” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/38 "2012-05-31T04:28:55Z")
> [@Sparky812](#): > > Yes, bilingual and bilingüe are the same. Wow, so nice of you to tell me! ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/39 "2012-05-31T12:12:43Z")
> [@Sparky812](#): > > Yes, bilingual and bilingüe are the same. > [@Nava](#): > > Wow, so nice of you to tell me! No problem, you seemed to be having a hard time grasping this concept so I’ll give you a recap: > [@Sparky812](#): > > Since I have been fluently bilingual for over 40 years. > [@Sparky812](#): > > I meant that I don’t differentiate or translate between the two. When I’m speaking, reading, or writing in French I’m thinking in French and not translating from English, and vice versa. > [@Nava](#): > > Ah, where I come from that’s just how we define _bilingüe_. You’re bilingual once you think in whichever of two languages you’re using; until you reach that level, you “know” the second language but you’re not bilingual. When you reach my level, in English ou en français, vous pouvez communiqué dans les deux langues avec aucune difficulté. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348/40 "2012-05-31T12:22:58Z")
> [@Sparky812](#): > > When you reach my level, in English ou en français, vous **pouvez communiqué** dans les deux langues avec aucune difficulté. Priceless. (bolding mine) Sparky, how’s about stop parading you’re goddamn bilinguality around, all forty years of it - you’re on the internet so no one cares, it is not an argument in and of itself to support the (weak) claim that you are making, and for someone who’s bilingual you make an awful lot of mistakes and are pretty incoherent - and that’s just the English! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-usage-question/623348.md?page=3)