Breakdown of Il y a de la farine et du sel dans la cuisine.
et
and
dans
in, inside
la cuisine
the kitchen
il y a
there is / there are
du
some (partitive, masculine)
de la
some (partitive, feminine)
la farine
the flour
le sel
the salt
Questions & Answers about Il y a de la farine et du sel dans la cuisine.
Why do we use de la before farine?
Farine (flour) is a feminine uncountable noun. You cannot easily count individual grains of flour! In French, when you want to say "some" of a feminine mass noun, you use the partitive article de la.
Why does the word for "some" change to du before sel?
Since we are talking about two things (flour and salt), why don't we use a plural form of Il y a?
Why does cuisine just get la instead of de la like the flour?
We use de la and du for the ingredients because we mean "some" flour and "some" salt. However, we are talking about a specific, countable room in the house: "the" kitchen. So we just use the definite article la (the) to say dans la cuisine (in the kitchen).
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