French language Q&A Forum

Questions about this topic, using the lesson examples:

Il a mangé de magnifiques gâteaux

He ate some magnificent cakes.

J'achète de beaux draps

I buy nice sheets.

Note that when the adjective is placed BEFORE a plural noun, the partitive article des (some) becomes de (or d' in front of a vowel or mute h). 

ATTENTION:
This rule doesn't apply when des is the contraction of "de + les" (= of/from/to the) :

J'ai acheté de nouvelles bottes

I bought [some] new boots.

My question is:  how is the 3rd example actually different from the previous two? How do we know that it would have be “de + les” and that they would not? Why wouldn’t they also have that option?

Merci  à l’avance!

For "I usually sit down in a corner" I wrote "D'habitude, je m'assois dans un coin". None of the four suggested solutions included "D'habitude" (or variants). Was I just plain wrong?

Thanks in advance.

HI,

Example 3 and 4 are incomplete in english translation. Please kindly take note.

The answer suggested "taille" for size but, in immersion school in France, I learned that "pointure", not "taille", is the correct way to say size when it comes to shoes.

Est-ce que le verbe gambader utilise l'objet indirecte? (qui lui gambadait)  Merci

I translated "at the moment" as "en ce moment", rather than "pour le moment".  I believe either one is correct, but "en ce moment" is not listed as an alternative.  Would it be incorrect to use that formulation in this context?

In the sentence: ¨Je vais acheter des pommes de terre et des patates douces pour préparer deux types de purée.¨, I used ¨purées¨ to match the plural established by ¨types¨. 

Is ¨purée¨ always a singular noun?