French language Q&A Forum

How do I know when it is appropriate to say   d'argent  or  de l'argent

diner   or   le diner?

The sentence was, "She is dividing the tasks," and we were supposed to fill in the blank with the verb "repartir." The correct answer was repartissez, but it just didn't sound right to me. I looked up the conjugation in three different places, and they all said it should be "repartez." Can you clarify this?

In this question, the sentences are, "I have only two horses. He has twelve." My question concerns the second sentence. The sentence reads, "Il a douze," and is translated as "He has to horses." Wouldn't an "en" be necessary, "he has two of them," referring back to the previous sentence?

Anyway, I want to ask about the following:

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Paula ne pense pas grand-chose de l'environnement

Paula doesn't think much of the environment

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". . . doesn't think much of the environment" seems neither correct nor natural. Normally, when one contemplates a matter (or chooses not to), one "thinks about X." 

If instead one wishes to indicate his/her opinion of X, and specifically wishes to suggest a negative opinion, one might say he/she "does not think much about X," where X could be a book, a movie, a teacher etc. In other words, X is things subject to subjective opinions.

Thus, in the example above, X as a subjective matter does not normally include the environment, which simply just is (i.e., we don't have subjective opinions about water, air or the sun, which just are, like the environment).

So, in the example, what is Paul really trying to say? Does she perhaps not think much the environment, as in not thinking much about environmental issues like pollution, climate change etc? 

If instead the example was:

Paula ne pense pas grand-chose des activistes environnementaux = Paula doesn't think much of environmental activists, 

that would make sense.