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Je viens du centre-ville.

Je viens du centre-ville.
I come from the city center.
From Lesson 36:The preposition from/of (de, du, des)·French

Questions & Answers about Je viens du centre-ville.

Why is it du here instead of just de?
In French, de means "from". Because centre-ville (city center) is a masculine noun, it needs the masculine "the", which is le. When de and le are next to each other, they always combine into the single word du (meaning "from the").
Why is "city center" translated as centre-ville with a hyphen?
French often puts the main idea first, followed by the descriptive word. So "city center" becomes "center-city" (centre-ville). The hyphen joins them into a single compound noun.
Is viens a regular verb?
No, venir (to come) is an irregular verb. For je (I), the form is viens. You will use this verb a lot when talking about where you are from or where you just were!
What if I wanted to say "I come from the city" instead of the city center?
You would say Je viens de la ville. Notice that ville is feminine, so it uses la. Unlike de and le, the words de and la do not contract into a new word.

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