Plurals of the and a = les and des (articles)

Posted by Aurélie Drouard

In: Level A0, Nouns & Articles, Article défini, Article indéfini, Pluriel

Questions: 0

Look at these examples:

La voiture est devant les voitures.
The car is in front of the cars.

Le chien joue avec les chiens.
The dog is playing with the dogs.

Où est l'hôtel?  - Avec les autres hôtels
Where is the hotel?  - With the other hotels.

Il y a un chat.  - Non il y a des chats.
There is a cat.  - No there are (some) cats.

Une fille se promène avec des filles.
A girl walks with (some) girls.

The plural forms of le, la and l' is les

The plural forms of un and une is des

Note that when you say ''I have strawberries.'' in English, you are actually saying ''I have some strawberries.'', but in English, you can omit 'some'. 

NOT in French!

In French you must always use "des".
E.g. J'ai des fraises. 

See also Using du, de la, de l', des to express some or any (partitive articles)

Grammar jargon: Les is the plural definite article; Des is the plural indefinite article. These articles are used with countable nouns (things you can count, like dogs, as opposed to mass nouns for things like milk which use partitive articles instead.)

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