#des/de poissons/poisson

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silver dirgeBOT
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des/de poissons/poisson

magic scroll
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In French, if the noun is uncountable (mass), you may use du / de la / de l’. If it’s countable, use des. For example: du poisson (fish as food) but des poissons (several fish).

I hope this helps.

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Und if its not multiple you use un/une

wide harbor
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I think of des as countable but not counted, or the number of them isn't important, cause if the number is important, you use the number

austere heath
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This isn't a simple question lol
Questions about grammar rarely are

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The trouble is, English (generally) doesn't mark the plural on fish, so it's hard to know what "some fish" really means

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"some fish" could be interpreted as either:

  • "some fish meat"
  • "multiple individual fish"
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if you're going for the former "du poisson" is the correct answer
if you're going for the latter "des poissons" (while it would be much rarer) would be correct

wide harbor
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Which is why we should formalise fishes 😆

austere heath
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well, fishes does exist

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but it's used when we're talking about multiple individual varieties or species of fish

wide harbor
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See, as a native I didn't know that 😅

austere heath
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"This pond has three fish" → Likely to understand that there are three individual fish in the pond, may understand that there are three varieties
"This pond has three fishes" → There are three species of fish in the pond, we don't know how many individuals

fierce rampart
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Merci. I’m still not totally clear about it. Are these reasons correct?

Like « tu voudrais des bonbons »: I guess because it’s countable?
« Tu veux de l’eau »: Water is not countable
« Tu veux de la salade »: I guess it’s a portion of the mass

So it kinda looks to me that « de » is what’s normally used in this scenario since I’m offering a portion of something. Going to the fish example above, I’m offering a portion of all the fish being served at the party.

I can’t think of another example that would use « des ». Candies are countable and I’m probably offering to take multiple of them. Brochettes I guess?

austere heath
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tu veux de la salade ? : do you want some salad/lettuce
tu veux des salades ? : do you want some heads of lettuce