Why is "de" necessary in, "Les plantes produisent de l'oxygène?"
Aurélie
Kwiziq language super star
5/09/16
Bonjour Susan !
In this sentence, it's because we're considering that oxygen is not a countable thing (i.e. "Plants produce some oxygen."), therefore you need to use the partitive article, i.e. de l' .
However, I agree that in this case, plants produce oxygen in general, therefore it would be more accurate to say : "Les plantes produisent l'oxygène.".
Thanks to you, I edited the example.
Merci et à bientôt !
In this sentence, it's because we're considering that oxygen is not a countable thing (i.e. "Plants produce some oxygen."), therefore you need to use the partitive article, i.e. de l' .
However, I agree that in this case, plants produce oxygen in general, therefore it would be more accurate to say : "Les plantes produisent l'oxygène.".
Thanks to you, I edited the example.
Merci et à bientôt !
Susan
Kwiziq community member
5/09/16
Bonjour Aurélie! Thank you for your very thorough answer. À bientôt! s.
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Susan
Kwiziq community member
3 September 2016
2 replies
Why is "de" necessary in, "Les plantes produisent de l'oxygène?"
This relates to:
Using le, la, l', les before nouns when generalising (definite articles) -