A1 · Articles
French articles: le, un, and du
English puts “the” or “a” in front of a noun, or nothing at all. French almost always wants an article, and it has three jobs: this specific thing (le), one of a kind (un), and an unspecified amount (du). Mix them up and you still get understood. Use them well and you sound like you live here.
Three jobs, not three translations
| Job | Masculine | Feminine | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| The (this one) | le / l’ | la / l’ | les |
| A / an (one of them) | un | une | des |
| Some (an amount) | du | de la / de l’ | des |
l’ is le or la before a vowel: l’eau, l’ami, l’heure.
Same noun, three meanings
Le café est froid.
The coffee is cold. — that coffee, the one in front of you Je voudrais un café.
I’d like a coffee. — one coffee, not a specific one Je bois du café le matin.
I drink coffee in the morning. — coffee as a thing I consume
When English uses nothing
English says “I like chocolate” and “She is a doctor” with a bare noun. French usually does not. Likes and professions still take an article — until they don’t, in a few set patterns you can learn as chunks.
J’aime le chocolat.
I like chocolate. — English drops “the”; French keeps le Elle est avocate.
She is a lawyer. — être + profession often drops un/une C’est une avocate is also correct. Elle est une avocate sounds odd.
Du, de la, des — “some”
The partitive is the one English speakers skip. You use it for food, drink, and uncountable stuff: some bread, some water, some patience. After a negative, du/de la/des usually become de.
Je prends de l’eau.
I’ll have some water. Il y a du monde.
There are people / it’s busy. Je n’ai pas de lait.
I don’t have any milk. Not “pas du lait” in this kind of sentence.
Try this out loud
Order something. Hear the difference between un and du.
Un croissant, s’il vous plaît.
One croissant, please.
Je voudrais du thé.
I’d like some tea.
L’addition, s’il vous plaît.
The bill, please.
Questions this page usually raises
Keep going
Next grammar pages — same English, next rule.
A1 · Nouns
French noun gender: le or la
Why French nouns are masculine or feminine, how to learn gender with the article, and the patterns that actually help.
Read this resourceA1 · Sentences
French negation: ne…pas and what people actually say
How to make French sentences negative with ne…pas, never, nothing — and why spoken French often drops the ne.
Read this resourceA1–A2 · Adjectives
French adjectives: agreement and place
How French adjectives change for gender and number, and why most of them sit after the noun.
Read this resource
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