intraarcana

[normal sandal]

Please be patient

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[brittle cave]

hi again

[signal socket]

hi

so this does not make sense to me why they corrected it as j'ai de la famille

[brittle cave]

do you know how to say "I want water"?

[signal socket]

je veux d'eau? (biting my nails out of nervousness)

i want (some) water?

[brittle cave]

ahah don't worry, we'll start from there because this sentence might be simpler to understand

[signal socket]

oh ok

so is it j'ai de l'eau

[brittle cave]

"eau" is not something you can count
you can't have one water, two waters, etc
you just have water/some water

[signal socket]

lmao (veux) not avoir

ok

[brittle cave]

in English, you typically don't add any article in that case, or maybe "some"

[signal socket]

can we use soup instead

[brittle cave]

sure

[signal socket]

that is clearer to me beacuse in English, colloquially, we say "a water"

so that's going to confuse me I think

[brittle cave]

I get ya 😄

funnily in French "soupe" is countable

[signal socket]

OMG haha

[brittle cave]

anyway

in French for such nouns you add what's called a partitive article

[signal socket]

yes i learned that yesterday

[brittle cave]

it's just something to indicate a part of the following noun, some quantity

"du" for masculine nouns
"de la" for feminine nouns
both eliding to "de l' " if followed by a vowel (or mute h)

[signal socket]

oh ok so since it's part of my family i just say de la famille?

[brittle cave]

absolutely

[signal socket]

oh, ok

[brittle cave]

here, famille is not something you can count

it's the concept of all the people in your family (extended or not)
so a part of it is "de la famille"

[signal socket]

ok i think it get it

francophones are thinking in fractions, got it. (jk)

[brittle cave]

as a general rule, nouns in French almost always are introduced by an article, which is not the case in English. When you want to translate a sentence where you wouldn't put an article in English, you have to think about what type of noun that is

I bought candies => j'ai acheté des bonbons (unspecified instances)
I want soup => je veux de la soupe (unquantifiable)
Red is my favorite color => le rouge est ma couleur préférée (general concept)

More about partitive articles: https://www.lawlessfrench.com/grammar/partitive-article/

[signal socket]

it's a lot. and now I know how my Korean students felt when I was trying to make them use articles of any kind when speaking English. I feel like French is the next level of always wanting to use an article.

[brittle cave]

-# an example where nouns are not introduced by articles would be "avoir"+ noun or "faire" + noun constructions (avoir peur, faire peur)

[signal socket]

So one should be considering "what article does it need" as a general rule for French?

[brittle cave]

yeah, sometimes you can translate it from English but it doesn't always work one for one, especially when English doesn't use an article in which case you have to think using French logic

[signal socket]

Grr ok

i guess i was confusing 'de' as 'of' and "de" as the partive article because they look the same

[brittle cave]

oh, I forgot but
I'm talking about common nouns.
Proper nouns (names) usually don't use articles, except for things like countries.

[signal socket]

that's why I was floored when they said j'ai de la famille I was like what?! i have OF the family?

[brittle cave]

technically the same word, but "de" has many, many use cases
by the way, that's why it's "du" in the masculine ("de + le" always contracts to "du")

[signal socket]

it's more helpful if I think of them as different words

[brittle cave]

what helps you best

[signal socket]

otherwise I'll just continue to be obstinate lol

[brittle cave]

just know that there are probably more use cases you don't know of

[signal socket]

that's fine

by that time I'll have internalized the partive articles so I'll be able to accept it lol

[brittle cave]

yup, one step at a time, you're doing great

[signal socket]

thx for your help

[brittle cave]

ah, last thing
Winconsin is a state, and it's one of those weird cases where despite being a proper noun, it does use an article (le Winconsin)
which means it's "à + le Winconsin", which with mandatory contraction becomes "au Winconsin"

[signal socket]

all US states have a masc article?

[brittle cave]

no... it actually varies, and I don't think there's a rule for it
some take "le" (le Texas, le Colorado), some take "la" (la Californie, la Géorgie), some don't take any article (New York, Washington)

[signal socket]

ok...can I ask about Canadian provinces and territories? I would just assume territories are feminine

because of "territory"

but my mind is open to be surprised...as seems to be how French goes

[brittle cave]

same, it varies.
Le Yukon, le Québec
La Nouvelle-Ecosse (because Ecosse is a feminine country)
Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador

[signal socket]

Ok lol

l'Ontario is ...Masc?

[brittle cave]

yes

but this one doesn't really matter as it starts with a vowel

[signal socket]

oh yeah