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de belles filles
I entered
Il y a de belles filles à l'université
into reverso.com, but I didn't like its translation,
There is beautiful girls at the university
My understanding is that one uses "de" instead of "des" before plural nouns immediately preceded by an adjective. Ai-je tort? Or is reverso confused?
Replies to This Discussion
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EducatorPermalink Reply by George Hunt on -
Hi.
No you are right -and that is what I learned at school("de" not "des" ). But reverso's mistake is only to say "is" instead of "are" .
I am not sure but I think there are circumstances where it would be possible to write , for example "Il y a des belles filles" (ie not changing "des" to "de" even though it is followed by an adjective which is itself followed by a plural noun) .
I don't know when or how often that is allowed but I think it does happen.
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Permalink Reply by Dwayne Roberts on
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You know, I agree. reverso really wasn't that bad.
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Permalink Reply by Chantal Savignat on
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Hello
you can always use "des" instead of "de". "Il y a des belles filles à l'université" is ok and everyone will understand.
Very often "de" is used instead of "des" when an adjective is before a plural noun. It's more often used like an observation, a reporting.
But sometimes you can't use "de" instead of "des" when an adjective is before a plural noun. But it's really difficult to write the rule. you can't do that when the noun and the adjective are a kind of composed word but not really one.
Il y a des jeunes filles = "jeunes" is an adjective but is not used as an adjective here, rather as a noun's complement. And you can't say "Il y a de jeunes filles". It's not correct and in a verbal conversation people would understand "de" = "two".
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I need to understand composed nouns better, for sure. Or, I should say, the rules involving them.
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Permalink Reply by Chantal Savignat on
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I means the words which are composed with 2 words (a noun and an adjective) with a " - " in the middle like "grand-père" this is what is called "mot composé" (I was certainly wrong translating it by composed noun)
"grand-père" "garde-fou" ...
"jeune fille" is not one of them, but it's not really a name and its adjective. To have the good meaning these two words are "indissociables" (I don't know the english word for "they can't be separate")
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Perhaps "indivisible".
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