Determiners

Determiners are those syntactic items which precede and qualify a noun.

They comprise the definite (le, la, les), indefinite (un, une, des) and partitive (du, de la, des) articles, the demonstrative adjectives (ce, cet, cette, ces), the possessive adjectives (mon, ma, mes, ton, son, notre, votre, leur, etc).

The articles

The three articles

The definite article corresponds, mostly, to English the and basically refers to something or somebody that has already been or is implicitly identified and specified.

Elle donne à LA tournée électorale un air de psychothérapie = she brings an atmosphere of psychotherapy to the electoral trail

Tunisie – LE rêve méditerranéen = Tunisia – the Mediterranean dream

Longtemps proposés comme une panacée AUX troubles de LA ménopause, LES traitements hormonaux sont mis sous surveillance = for a long time seen as a panacea for the problems of the menopause, hormonal treatment is being investigated

Cent ans en bleu – tous LES matches, tous LES joueurs, LES stars, LES épopées, LES capitaines, LES sélectionneurs DU foot français = a hundred years in blue – all the matches, all the players, the stars, the legends, the captains, the selectors of French football

The indefinite article corresponds, mostly, to English a, an, some, and basically refers to something or someone that has not yet been identified or specified; it introduces a new, countable noun into a conversation or piece of writing –