Fruit and vegetables

Buying produce: de, not du

After a quantity, the partitive collapses to plain de:

un kilo de cerisesa kilo of cherries
la moitié d'un melonhalf a melon
beaucoup de haricotsa lot of beans

Compare the bare partitive you have had since L45: Je mange *du melon.*

I bought a kilo of peas.
J'ai acheté un kilo de petits pois.

le petit pois is one word made of two

le petit pois is a fixed compound — the adjective is part of the name, not a description, so it is never dropped. The plural puts -s on both halves: les petit*s pois*.

la pêche has two lives

la pêchethe peach
la pêchefishing

Same spelling, unrelated meanings. Context always settles it, and this lesson teaches the fruit.

This peach is very sweet.
Cette pêche est très sucrée.

l'ail is masculine

Despite ending in a consonant sound that suggests otherwise, l'ail is masculine — l'ail est fort. It has no ordinary plural; you count une gousse d'ail, a clove.

Colours agree

vert behaves like any adjective: un haricot vert, des haricots verts, une pomme verte.

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