miketuan

[slow obsidian]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

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[little bolt]

We have An excellent tea FROM japan

Would you like me to further elaborate? @heady sail

[heady sail]

Thank you, that would help me

[little bolt]

so why the first one is 'un' is that there is a type of tea they have

the second, why is it du, is because the tea is FROM japan

now from we use de, and French loves articles, we need from the japan

to do that we convert de le Japon to du japon

because de le doesnt exist in this context

[heady sail]

I am sorry for the misunderstanding, I have underlined the parts that I wanted to ask about. Thanks for that additional piece of information, that helps as well

[little bolt]

thé is uncountable, but it connots a type of tea, an excellent Japnaese Tea

so for example Matcha

it connotes "un excellent type de thé du Japon"

you can have AN excellent Japanese Tea in English

we are saying on type, do you get me?

you cannot count tea, but you can count types of tea

[lilac thicket]

strictly speaking thé is both countable and uncountable

it works the same in English, incidentally

[little bolt]

ah oui tas raison

When wwe say A tea so strong...

it means a TYPE of tea

same as here

[heady sail]

I got you, ty both very much

So the rule "No indefini article before uncountable nouns" still holds true?

[little bolt]

wdym

[heady sail]

So in "Nous avons un excellent thé du Japon": "un" was used because the speaker refers to a type of tea, or because "un thé" in that context means "a type of tea" (which is countable)? Or both? I just want to find a more general understanding that can be applied to every nouns, not limited to "thé"

[little bolt]

not 100% of the time

le thé que tu as bu

the tea that you drank

ie the type

it all goes to context

but generically yes

without context, no nothing, you want tea

you'd haev to say "je veux boire du thé"

[prime junco]

It depends whether you're talking about tea in general (uncountable) or different types of tea (countable).

In your original sentence, you were talking about a type of tea – one that originates from Japan – meaning that it would be countable.

If I were to say, 'I have tea', I'm not mentioning the different tea types, I'm just mentioning tea in a general sense, so it's uncountable: « du thé ».

The same rule applies, for example, for « poisson (fish) ».
Uncountable means you are talking about fish as a generality; « du poisson » means I have a few pieces of tuna or mackerel, etc., the only thing that matters is that they're all fish and there's an undefined amount of it.
Countable means you are talking about fish as a type; « des poissons » means I have a few pieces of tuna, mackerel, and achovy; I have some pieces of different varieties of fish.

[heady sail]

I see, the sentence I used was from an example for this statement in my textbook: "L'article partitif (du, de la) est remplacé par un article indéfini (un, une) quand le nom est accompagné d'un adjectif". Is this a scam at all?

[little bolt]

No, not a scam

this is just a 'type' but type is hidden

a type of good cheese, a good cheese

[prime junco]

I wouldn't say it's a scam but it's too oversimplified

« J'aime pas boire du café amer » is perfectly fine because the adjective isn't describing a type of coffee

[heady sail]

Thanks, does that also apply to nouns starting with a vowel? because «de l'» was not included in that statement

[prime junco]

yes

partitives are partitives