While I was reviewing a Lesson Plan from Rocket French Premium I came upon a slight confusion. It was the use of de and du in French.

Are those de and du interchangeable? Or are there certain scenarios when it is grammatically correct to use de instead of du? Ex: Why is it: Une tranche de pain, instead of: Une tranche du pain. Or. Why is it: Le goût du vin, instead of: Le goût de vin. Merci!

Now I am getting confused! I thought when a word was masculine as in 'le pain' 'du' was used instead of 'de le pain' it became 'du pain'. It would be nice to have some clarification merci

Hi Everyone, Thanks for your posts!

I will explain when to use de, and when to use du !

Firstly, DE and DU are not interchangeable.

• 'Du' is used as a preposition meaning 'of' or as an adjective meaning 'any/some.'
• 'De' means 'of/from' in when relating to a noun.

I hope this example sentences help to clarify the difference between du and de.

• I'd like a slice of bread = Je voudrais une tranche de pain
• I'd like some bread = Je voudrais du pain
   
• L'eau a un goût de vin = The water tastes like (of) wine
• J'aime le goût du vin = I like the taste of wine

Bon chance! :)
Marie-Claire

Sorry but i don't understand what you mean by 'Du' is used as a preposition What preposition are you talking about?

Salut Andrew, All I mean by preposition is that it is the kind of word that doesn't have a real 'meaning' in a sense, but has to be used between or after certain words to make the sentence complete. It's just a little grammatical item. Whereas when it's used as an adjective, it's describing the noun and does have a translatable meaning. I hope this helps. :) Marie-Claire

hi can you please help me by telling me that while using 'de' and ' du' as prepositions then where le,la etc....and a,au etc....are used??are 'de' 'du' are upgraded form of la,le...a, au....???? please help me...hope you will help me out! merci!

You guys need a more detailed explanation in regards to de, du and de la. I am including in this post a link that will help you from About.com Make sure you sign up for the french newsletter. They are always answering questions and clarifying stuff like this. I'm findin that he more french I learn, the more confusing the grammar. Really, when I was a debutante I found it easier to express myself because I only knew one way to do it and I had a very small vocabulary with few choices. You'll see what I mean: http://french.about.com/sitesearch.htm?q=de+du&SUName=french I want to know if you benefitted from the link and if so pass it on to others. I have other free resources if you need them.

Bonjour I found this old thread when searching clarification of 'de' and 'du'. I thought I found it helpful until I tested it on the following example which is found on the link you posted previously on about.com. From what I can see both the examples below are saying a similar thing (that the book / basket) belongs to the student(s) / dog). however one uses 'de' and the other 'du'. Can you please clarify. Thanks, Nikki le livre de l'étudiant / le livre des étudiants the student's / students' book (belongs to the student / students) le panier du chien the dog's basket (belongs to the dog)

Hi - These rules are given in the partitive articles lesson (it's 14.5 in Premium Plus), but they work similarly: du - Masculine singular de la - Feminine singular de l’ - Masculine or feminine in front of a vowel or silent H des - Masculine or feminine plural It's *de l'étudiant* because étudiant starts with a vowel, so you get the "de le" étudiant contracted to de l'étudiant. It's *du chien* because it's formed from "de le" chien, which is not contracted, so "de le" becomes "du".