When talking about food and baking, you will often need to find une recette (a recipe) and ajouter (to add) ingredients.
| I am looking for an easy recipe. | Je cherche une recette facile. |
Expressing "some" with partitive articles
In English, we often say we are adding "some" sugar, or we just say "I am adding butter" without any article at all. In French, you must use an article before a noun.
When dealing with mass nouns—uncountable ingredients like powders, liquids, and pastes—you use partitive articles. The form you choose depends on the gender and the first letter of the noun.
| Noun Type | Partitive Article | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | du | du sucre |
| Feminine | de la | de la farine |
| Vowel / Mute H | de l' | de l'huile |
Masculine: du
For masculine uncountable nouns, use du (which is a contraction of de + le).
| I am adding some butter to the recipe. | J'ajoute du beurre à la recette. |
| Do we add some sugar? | Est-ce que nous ajoutons du sucre ? |
Feminine: de la
For feminine uncountable nouns, use de la.
| They are making a cake and they add some flour. | Ils font un gâteau et ils ajoutent de la farine. |
You will often use these together when listing what you have in your kitchen:
| There is some flour and some salt in the kitchen. | Il y a de la farine et du sel dans la cuisine. |
Vowels and Mute H: de l'
If the uncountable ingredient begins with a vowel or a mute h, the article contracts to de l'. This is true for both masculine and feminine nouns.
| They are buying some cream and some oil. | Ils achètent de la crème et de l'huile. |
| He is drinking some water with some honey. | Il boit de l'eau avec du miel. |
