'des' vs 'les'

[Al Graham]

I'm trying to grasp the situations in which one uses 'des' vs 'les'.

I think 'des' is used for a more general meaning: Il achète des livres de la librairie (He buys [some] books from the bookstore, no specific ones.)

Il achète les livres dans le fenêtre de la librairie (He buys the books in the bookstore window).

Am I on the right track with this?

Al

[Frank]

Hi Al,

"des" is often when, in English, you would use "some" or nothing before the noun.

OTOH, "les" is rather when "the" would be required in English.

Compare:

Je joue avec des enfants (I'm playing with kids)
with
Je joue avec les enfants (I'm playing with the kids)

In the later, you're talking about specific kids, probably yours. It's not ambiguous.

But of course, there are tons of exceptions and refinements to this rule.

There was an interesting discussion about this on this very forum a few days (week?) ago, you should try to find it :)

[Al Graham]

Hi Frank

Thanks for the help. It sounds like I was on the right track--when you mean a specific set or group of things, 'les' is the word. I guess what I find confusing about 'des' is that it is sometimes translated and sometimes not, i.e., des livres is sometimes translated in my texts as 'books' and sometimes as 'some books' or '(some) books' without any context to explain why this is happening.

I did search the forum for 'des' and 'les' comparisons before posting, but couldn't find anything--you aren't thinking of my previous post regarding 'des' vs 'quelques' are you?

Thanks again,
Al

[Frank]

you aren't thinking of my previous post regarding 'des' vs 'quelques' are you?

Oh now that you mention it, it's probably the one I was referring to :)

[Neil Coffey]

Al -- the thing is that depending on context, des livres can be the equivalent of either "books" or "some books" (among other things).

English, like some other languages-- but not French-- has a feature whereby it allows so-called "bare" nouns. For example, in English it is grammatical to say:

(a) There were books on the table.

or:

(b) There were some books on the table.

The two sentences actually have slightly different implications. For example, it would be odd in English to say:

??There were books on the table. Two of them were written by J.R. Hartley.

whereas if you insert "some" ("There were some books..."), the utterance becomes more acceptable. (You could argue that it's just about possible to remove the "some", but I think most speakers will find it more normal to include it.)

But to some extent, this is a distinction that French doesn't make, or at least not in the same way: you generally must insert the des, whether you mean something like (a) or something like (b).

[Al Graham]

Thanks Neil

I wish my grammar books had the explanation you've provided.

The expression 'bare nouns' tickles me for some reason. Makes me think of French nouns as bundled up in little 'des' or 'les' suits going off to work in a sentence... :)

Al