I'm confused here. All the lessons on "avoir du mal" suggest that it's a fixed expression. I therefore wrote "J'ai toujours un peu du mal..." even though I was hearing "...de mal".
What's going on here? I don't really understand. Is this "avoir du mal" or something else entirely?
Bonjour Jim,
You are right that the idiom is "avoir du mal à [faire quelque chose] (= to have trouble / a hard time doing something). What causes the switch from du to de here is the quantifier "un peu". In French, adverbs of quantity (such as un peu, beaucoup, trop, or assez) always require de (or d') instead of the partitive article (du, de la, des):
J'ai du temps -> J'ai un peu de temps
J'ai du courage -> J'ai un peu de courage
J'ai du mal -> J'ai un peu de mal
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !
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