Why is it "J'aimerais soit de l'argent soit un cadeau?" I thought with aimer you didn't use the partitive.

AnnC1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Why is it "J'aimerais soit de l'argent soit un cadeau?" I thought with aimer you didn't use the partitive.

Asked 5 years ago
AurélieKwiziq team memberCorrect answer

Bonjour Ann !

Here it depends of what you're trying to say.
 
When you say J'aime l'argent, it means I love money, speaking about money in general, hence the definite article.
 
But when you say J'aimerais de l'argent, it means I'd like [some] money, and you're referring to a (vague) quantity of money, which is a bit more specific.
 
If you said J'aime de l'argent, it'd mean I love some money, which sounds weird, as it restricts your liking to a portion of the thing. Usually, when you express a liking, it's not partial, hence the use of definite articles most of the time with aimer. 
But with aimer in Le Conditionnel, it's more something you would like to have or do, hence the possibility of introducing quantifiers.
 
I hope that's helpful!
Bonne journée !
AnnC1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor
And then it is "C'est soit les vacances soit le travail." How to know when to use partitive and when to use just the article?
AnnC1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor
Thanks, so in "C'est soit les vacances, soit le travaille", those are general? When I searched some of the translation sites on line, one showed the partitive here, so it's very confusing.

Why is it "J'aimerais soit de l'argent soit un cadeau?" I thought with aimer you didn't use the partitive.

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